Tia's Story Book 3
by niceracheal
Summary: The adventures of Tia Samuels continue in book 3 as she heads back to camp after Kate, Jack, and Sawyer have been taken. With Jack gone, the camp looks for a new leader to emerge. The hatch has been destroyed and now, with no button to worry about, Tia just wants her friends back, safe and sound. Tia takes on even more in Book 3. Come check it out! Please read previous books first.
1. Day 69: Pala Ferry

We've been off the cost of the Island for over a day. And to tell the truth, I'm getting kind of cranky. Jin is nuts about this boat and keeping Sun safe. He rattles on and on in Korean, and, believe it or not, I've begun to pick up on a few phrases, like "baby" and "sick". Sick is what Sun has been, hacking into the toilet under the deck, over the side of the boat, but luckily nowhere anyone puts their feet. Sayid has been especially annoying, sitting patiently, looking over the old maps of Rousseau.

"What are you even doing?" I ask him.

"I am trying to determine our exact location," he answers, annoyingly patient.

"I though those maps weren't drawn to scale, that it was impossible to figure out locations from it."

"Theoretically, I should still be able to place locations on it accurately." He makes a mark with a red pencil.

"Are we gonna talk about it yet?"

"Talk about what?"

"Oh, I don't know, Sayid. Maybe the giant flash of purple light and the massive loud noise causing Island vibrations?"

"No, we're not going to talk about that yet," he answers making another mark on the map. Sun approaches, crouching down beside us.

Jin stands above her and says something in Korean.

"My husband says it's time to leave," Sun translates. Jin speaks again. "He doesn't think Jack and the others are coming. It's been over a day since we lit the fire. They should be here by now."

Sayid puts down his pencil. "Jack knows we're out here. He's counting on our signal. Perhaps he's not able to see the smoke. If he's North of us, the mountains would block his view." He stands and points to the cliffs we climbed two days ago and continues speaking as Sun translates. "We need to sail forward along the coast, clear the mountains, and start another signal fire."

Jin stops Sun's translating and walks up to Sayid. "No!" he protests.

"I told Jack I would light a fire," Sayid says, looking Jin in the eye. "I'm not abandoning him."

Sun translates this for Jin, but he cuts her off. I can't make anything out other than Sayid's name and at the end of the argument Sun turns back to Sayid. "My husband thinks we have to do as he says because he's the only one who knows how to sail. But he's wrong. I can help you sail the boat."

Wow, didn't see that one coming. I guess Sun is finally starting to stand up for herself. She's come a long way from the crash two months ago, where he treated her like a piece of property.

* * *

><p>Sun steers us for over an hour to the other side of the cliffs. Jin coops himself up below deck, slicing and dicing fish for the four of us to eat. I'm sitting at the helm of the boat, because that's where I'm the least dizzy. It also provides a lookout for the Island. It doesn't take long and I spot something in the distance and I hold the binoculars up to my eyes.<p>

It looks like a boat dock. What the hell? "Sayid!" I call, jumping off my perch and running over to him. "Look." I hand him the binoculars and point towards the dock. Sayid hands the binoculars to Sun, who spots the dock and calls Jin up in Korean. When he gets here, Sun hands him the binoculars and Jin finds the dock.

"Why should there be a dock all the way out here?" Sun asks.

"Others," Jin says, handing the binoculars back to Sayid.

"The dock's decaying," Sayid tells us. "It's overgrown. It looks like it hasn't been used in quite some time. Whoever built it, they're not here now." Sun translates and Sayid continues, holding the binoculars up to his eyes. "Let's bring the boat in. We'll tie it to the dock and build a fire on the beach. The visibility's excellent. Jack will be able to see us for miles around."

"Safe?" Jin asks him.

"Yes, Jin. Of course it's safe." But Sayid exchanges a look with me. This whole trip wasn't safe. We went into it without a definite plan. There's no telling what we could do if they actually showed up.

* * *

><p>Sun docks the boat and Sayid jumps off instantly. I follow, but Sun and Jin linger on the boat, making sure it's properly docked. When my feet hit the wood, it feels sturdy, not at all decaying. A giant sign sits on top of the dock, naming it, <em>Pala Ferry<em>.

I jog up to Sayid. "You gonna let me in on the big secret?"

He continues walking to the tree line and starts grabbing firewood. "Jack and the other's aren't coming."

"What are you talking about?" I say, grabbing a fallen branch.

"I'm almost certain they've been captured. It wouldn't take them this long to reach us, and there's no way that last fire wasn't visible."

"But that doesn't mean they've been captured."

"There are tracks all over the dock, as fresh as yesterday."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"I didn't want to alarm Jin. This is something he would not allow. It is why I didn't want Sun to come along."

"So what's your plan, then?"

"I will tell you momentarily. We need to get back. Sun and Jin will get suspicious."

* * *

><p>Sayid managed to mumble his plan to me as Sun carried small gas cans off the boat and Jin gathered wood. It's a good plan, but that doesn't mean I like it.<p>

Sun drops a third gas can in front of the fire, which is going to be massive, if not bigger than the signal fire we had going at our camp of a month.

"What else can I do?" Sun asks.

"Help your husband. We need as much wood as we can find," Sayid answers.

"We're building quite a large fire."

"We have to make sure Jack will see the smoke."

"Why are you lying to me, Sayid?" Our heads jerk up and Sun is looking between us both, but mostly at Sayid.

"And what would you know about lying, Sun?" Sayid asks.

"You're putting our lives in danger," she says, turning around to leave.

I hate lying to her. "Sun, wait," I call, jogging up to her and stopping her. "Sayid thinks Jack's group was captured by the Others. There are tracks all over the dock, as recent as yesterday."

Sun looks over to Sayid who's looking rather sheepish about getting caught. "You said this dock was abandoned," she says to him.

"That would be part of the lying you mentioned," he says.

"You're not building this fire for our people," Sun realizes. "You're building it for the Others."

"I suspect that when they see the smoke they'll send a scout party to investigate. By then it will be night. When they arrive, Tia and I will ambush them. She will take two of them hostage, and I'll kill the rest."

"Two?" Sun asks.

"One to make the other cooperate," I explain.

"What do you need me to do?" she asks.

Sayid's eyes are full of apology. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to lie to Jin for another twenty minutes."

"Why?"

"Because once the fire is lit it will be too late to go back."

* * *

><p>Sayid pours the last of the gas on the fire and I light a match and drop it onto the wood. It sparks flame immediately and the wood catches quickly with the help of the gasoline. We walk away over to where Sun and Jin are standing.<p>

Sayid perches against a tree and Jin approaches him. "Gun," he says, holding out his hand.

"I don't think I understand," Sayid says.

Jin calls for Sun in Korean and then explains himself. Sun translates. "He knows what we're doing. He knows it's a trap. He says he understands English better than I think he does. He knows I betrayed him."

Jin finishes, then turns back to Sayid. "Gun," he repeats.

Sayid reaches behind his back and pulls out a pistol from the butt of this cargo pants. "Can you handle one of these? It's an automat—,"

Jin expertly handles the gun, checking the mag, replacing it and loading the chamber. Yeah, I think he knows how to handle it.

"I think you'd be safer on the boat," Sayid says to Sun. She starts to leave, but he stops her. "Sun, if by chance they get past us, there's another gun. It's inside the blue tarp beneath the galley counter."

"If they get past you that means my husband is dead. And I won't care anymore."

"As I said," Sayid repeats. "The gun is inside the tarp."

* * *

><p>Night falls and Sayid, Jin, and I crouch in the underbrush, waiting for the Others. The plan is still mostly the same, only now, Jin will help me take prisoners. Sayid's role remains the same.<p>

After two hours of crouching in the dark I hear Sayid whisper "I don't think they're coming."

BANG BANG BANG!

Three gunshots fire from over at the boat. Over where Sun is hiding. Jin is up immediately and Sayid and I follow, running to the dock. Jin calls Sun's name as we run, but the boat takes off from the dock, with Sun still inside. When we reach the dock, bullets are shot at us from the boat, barley missing us. I take cover behind the thick rails and start shooting back.

First they took Claire, and luckily, I got her back, but there's no way I'm going through that again. They're not taking Sun. Soon the boat is too far away for me to make a shot in the dark.

Jin gets up from his cover and runs to the edge of the dock, jumping into the water as Sayid yells "No!"

Soon the boat is at a far distance, but I hear another gunshot and then a splash into the water. I hear Jin call for Sun many times.

Eventually, though I hear Sun's voice call back and I fall to my knees, grateful that my friend is alive. Sayid bends down beside me and covers my shoulders with his arms. "You're shaking," he says to me.

"She's alive," is all I can say. I see what I assume is Sun and Jin in the dark, embracing each other in the water.

* * *

><p><strong>Thanks for following the journey into season 3! Seriously, though. I love reviews...like love them. Don't be afraid to send one! Enjoy!<strong>


	2. Day 71: Eko on Fire

It takes over a day to navigate our way back to camp. Sayid is mostly silent throughout the trip. We make it back to camp close to nightfall. Camp members spot us walking up the beach and greet us as we make it back home.

"You guys are alright!" Hurley exclaims, grabbing me in a bear hug.

"Hurley, you're here?" I breathe through the crushing of my ribs. "Where's everyone else?"

"Dudes, we need to talk," he says.

We head over to the kitchen where Charlie, Desmond, and Locke are sitting at the dining room table.

"You're okay!" Charlie says, coming over and giving me a hug. I squeeze him back, happy for the comfort.

I shake hands with Desmond. "My boat work okay for you?"

"They took it," I say. "Middle of the night, they swiped it."

"Don't worry about it," he says.

"What happened? Sayid asks Hurley.

"They took us," he says. "They took us to this dock at the ocean. But they let me go as like, a messenger."

"And what is their message?" Sayid asks.

"To stay away, dude. They put bags over Jack, Kate, and Sawyer's heads and, like, took 'em."

"What about Michael?" I ask.

"He let him go with Walt. He gave him a boat."

"He? He, who?"

"That guy, Henry. He's like their leader."

Sayid and I exchange a look of pain. We had their leader and he just got away. "I know," Locke says. "You're upset. But there's nothing we can do about it right now."

"What about that flash?" I ask. "The vibrating and the purple light?"

"Ah, that was me," Desmond says.

"Actually it was me," Locke interjects. "I broke the computer in the hatch and Desmond turned the failsafe."

"The failsafe? There was a failsafe all this time? Why didn't we use it before?"

"Well, sister, I didn't know what it would do," Desmond says.

"My name's Tia," I tell him. "Just in case you were wondering."

The Scotsman grinned. "Good to know."

"So what did it do?" I ask. "The failsafe?"

"Blew up the hatch," Locke answers.

"Blew up the hatch?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"So that's it? No more button?"

"No more button," Locke confirms.

"Hey, Tia, now that you're back, do you think you could take a look at Eko?"

"What's wrong with Eko?"

"He tried to stop us," Locke says. "Almost blew himself up with the leftover dynamite."

"Is he okay?"

"After his squall with a polar bear?" Charlie asks. "No, not really. He's been out of it since the hatch."

"Polar bear? Never mind. I don't want to know. Where is he?"

Charlie and Hurley take me to his tent. They've given his a new shirt and he lays on a bed of plane cushions, mumbling nonsense. "He's been like this for how long?"

"'Bout three days now." Charlie answers.

I bend down beside him. "Eko, can you hear me?" He doesn't respond, just mumbles incoherently. "I can't really do anything about this," I tell them. "Physically, he's a little beat up, but there's nothing I can do for what's going on in his head."

"Fair enough," Charlie says. "Let's get back to Locke. Maybe we can make a plan now that you and Sayid are back."

We exit the tent and start back toward the kitchen. Hurley stops us about halfway there. "You guys smell smoke?"

We turn around and Eko's tent is in flames. "Get him out of there," I shout to Charlie and Hurley, who run with me back to the tent. Other survivors come up to the tent and try to douse it in flame. Charlie and I crawl inside and grab Eko, me at the feet, Charlie at the shoulders. We manage to pull him out.

We drag his limp body to the tree line and perch him against a sturdy one. "Lay him down, gently," I manage to cough out, my lungs full of smoke and tired from lugging this man who probably weighs three of me.

"My... brother. My... brother," Eko mumbles.

"You're alright. It's okay," Charlie tells him.

"My... brother. Yemi."

"It's alright," Charlie says.

"I'm gonna get him some water," I say, standing and jogging to the rain tub as Eko mumbles "Yemi…"

I'm back in a matter of seconds, but Eko and Charlie are gone. I see Charlie talking to Locke a few meters away and job over to them "Where's Eko?" I ask.

"What are you talking about? You and I pulled him out over…over…" Charlie's eyes scan the tree line, but Eko is nowhere to be found. "He was right there! Eko?" he calls. "Eko?"

* * *

><p>We search for about an hour, but he's nowhere near the camp. Locke can't even find a trail. "We can't worry about this now," Locke says to us. "Tomorrow we need to regroup, figure out what we're gonna do about this situation."<p>

"The Eko situation or the Others situation?"

"Both."


	3. Day 72: Return to the Beechcraft

I'm sitting on the beach with Locke, Desmond, and Sayid as Locke tells us his plan.

"I think I know how to find Jack, Kate and Sawyer," he tells us.

"Can I ask why he's being included in the conversation?" Sayid asks, motioning towards Desmond with his head.

"Is that supposed to hurt my feelings?" Desmond jokes.

"Tell him what you told me," Locke says to Desmond.

"The computer in the hatch wasn't only for pushing the button. I'm pretty sure it could be used to communicate with other stations."

"This is fascinating," Sayid says. "But you told us last night that the hatch exploded."

"One of them did," Locke says.

"You want to try and communicate with the Others?"

"Yup."

Charlie and Hurley walk up to us. "No luck, dudes. We looked everywhere. Eko's gone."

"There's no trail," Charlie says.

"Not that we, like, know what a trail looks like."

Locke turns to me. "When you pulled him out of the tent, did he say anything?"

"Not really," I answer. "He was just mumbling 'My brother, my brother.' Then 'Yemi', maybe."

"Tia, Sayid, pack your gear. We're going to that computer."

"Wait! What about Eko?" Charlie asks.

"We'll catch up to him. We're all going to the same place." Locke tells him.

I leave the group and pack my bag. Luckily I had it with me and didn't leave it on the boat when the Others took it. I move to the kitchen and grab some DHARMA Nutri-bars. A few other people hang around and Locke walks by. "Hey everybody. We're heading out to the Pearl station. There's a computer there that might help us find our people. Anybody want to come along?"

"What do you mean 'Anybody want to come along?'" Hurley asks.

"I mean, if you'd like to join us, it's a free island."

"Yeah, see, Jack would go and do stuff alone. Or he'd take Tia or Sayid or Kate."

"Yeah, well. I'm not Jack. The more the merrier."

"I'll go," a woman says. I can't remember her name.

"What?" a man asks her. I can't remember is name either, but I know they're a couple. Maybe Locke has a point. I really don't know too much about a lot of the survivors around camp.

"Anybody else want to come, meet us at the tree line in ten minutes. Bring water," Locke instructs.

I follow Locke to the water bucket to fill up my bottles with Desmond not far behind me. "Would you mind if I asked you a question, Brother?" Desmond says to Locke.

"Shoot."

"Are we off to poke at a computer, or are we going after your man Eko?"

"Two birds, one stone. Eko's heading for the plane that crashed on top of the entrance to the Pearl station."

"Well, that's quite a coincidence."

"Don't mistake coincidence for fate."

"You didn't say we were going to the Beechcraft," I say to Locke.

"Sorry I didn't mention it. Eko and I found the entrance to The Pearl under where the plane fell." He pauses and looks at me carefully. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I just haven't been there since…"

"I know. Don't worry, you'll be fine." He caps his bottle and walks away.

Desmond sinks his bottle into the water. "What happened at the plane?"

"None of your business," I say, pulling my bottle out of the tarp.

"My, aren't you a wee bit secretive."

"It's not a secret. I just don't feel like telling you." I grab the talisman of Boone's necklace around my neck, something I've started to do whenever I get nervous.

"Fine, you don't have to tell me. But there is one other thing I'm curious about. What makes you so special?"

"Excuse me?"

"You and your mate, Sayid. Locke wouldn't do anything until you two came back to camp."

"I'm not special," I say, putting my bottle in my pack. "Locke just feels like he needs to include me in everything he does, I guess."

"And why is that, sister?"

I smile. "I told you it was none of your business." I spot Locke and Sayid over by the tree line and head over to them.

* * *

><p>Our trek to the Beechcraft is mostly silent. The couple that came with us stays mostly in the back. "I'm Tia," I say to the woman.<p>

"Um, yeah, I know who you are. We've met, like four times."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, I'm Nikki, this is my boyfriend, Paulo." I continue to give her a blank stare. "Yeah, guess I was just kidding myself. The courageous A-Team member Tia can't remember us little folk back at the beach."

"A-Team member?" I ask confused.

"It's what she calls you and Jack and Kate, all of the rest of you who do your important missions and things," Paulo answers.

"I don't follow."

"Oh, you know, your merry little band of adventurers that never includes us," Nikki says tersely.

"She gets jealous when she's left out of the loop," Paulo says.

"Um, I'm sorry," I say, still slightly confused. I guess she has a point, but she makes me feel insanely uncomfortable.

"Did you hear that?" Locke asks from the front of the group. He starts to jog forward and I follow behind Sayid and Desmond.

I hear Locke footsteps stop at the edge of the tree line. We break it and across a wide stream, our missing friend stands at a distance.

"Hello, Eko," Locke calls to him.

* * *

><p>It doesn't take long and we've made it to the Beechcraft. A lot has changes since the last time I was here, the day after Boone died, almost delirious with exhaustion and grief. I grip his necklace in my hand. The once yellow place has been burnt to a crisp. Most of the Virgin Mary statues that littered the ground are gone, but a few pieces of their broken plaster still linger. I remember that Charlie said he and Eko burned the plane.<p>

"This is what you didn't want to tell me about?" Desmond says. "A fallen plane?"

"How many times do I have to ask you to quit bugging me?" I ask.

"Does it have something to do with that necklace you're holding?"

I ignore him and follow Locke, who's standing in the center of the field. "Here's the entrance to the station. You go ahead and head down, I'll be right behind you." He walks over to Eko, who's pulling rocks off of the entrance to the plane.

Sayid grabs one side of the metal doors in the ground, Desmond grabs the other and they pull. Inside is a tunnel, very deep and dark like the original door to the Swan hatch, the one we blew up, except this one has an unbroken ladder leading all the way down. "After you, miss," Desmond says to me, motioning.

I head down the ladder and drop into a cramped, circular room. Television screens line the walls and electric equipment beeps and lights up next to them. Nikki drops down beside me, followed by Paulo, then Desmond and Sayid. Locke comes down not long after, leaving Eko above us.

"What is this hatch for?" I ask Locke.

He grabs his pack off his back and starts rummaging through it, eventually producing a VHS tape. "See for yourself," he says, putting it in a player.

One of the screens lights up and Nikki and I sit in the office chairs to watch the video. The DHARMA Initiative Station 5—The Pearl is written on the screen with the familiar logo, except, instead of a Swan, there's a giant white circle, which I'm sure is meant to represent a pearl.

The same Asian man from the Swan Orientation video appears, except, this time he's not wearing a white lab coat. He's wearing a turtleneck sweater and a tweed sports coat.

"_Hello, I'm Dr. Mark Wickman, and this is the orientation film for Station 5 of DHARMA Initiative. Station 5, or the Pearl, is a monitoring station where the activities of participants in DHARMA Initiative projects can be observed and recorded; not only for posterity, but for the ongoing refinement of the Initiative as a whole. As Karen DeGroot herself has written, _'Careful observation in the only key to true and complete awareness.'_ Your tour of duty will last three weeks and during this time you and your partner will observe a psychological experiment in progress. Your duty is to observe team members at another station on the Island. These team members are not aware that they are under surveillance, or that they are the subjects of an experiment. Working in eight hour shifts, you and your partner will record everything you observe in the notebooks we provided. What is the nature of the experiment, you might ask? What do these subjects believe they are accomplishing as they struggle to fulfill their tasks? You, as the observer, don't need to know. All you need to know is the subjects believe their job is of the utmost importance. Remember, everything that occurs, no matter how minute or seemingly unimportant, must be recorded. Each time a notebook is filled with the fruits of your diligent observation, roll it up into containers provided. Then, simply place the container in the pneumatic tube, and presto, it will be transported directly to us. At the end of your eight hour shift, proceed to the Pala ferry which will take you back to the barracks to prepare for your next shift. On behalf of the DeGroots, Alvar Hanso, and all of us here at the DHARMA Initiative, thank you. Namaste and good luck_."

"John?" I say. Locke, Desmond, and Sayid have started shuffling through the electrical equipment, trying to get the other TVs to work. Paulo is in the bathroom off to the side of the room. "He introduces himself as Mark Whitman, but in the Swan video he calls himself Marvin Candle."

Locke looks at me, surprised. "You saw that video once, over a month ago. How do you remember something like that?"

"I don't know. I guess it stuck with me."

"The wiring is only one-way," Sayid informs us from under the equipment. "It's a closed system. A dead end."

"Hey, guys?" Nikki asks. "What are these other TVs for?"

"Sorry?" Locke says.

"All these TVs... This guy says that there's six stations. Uh, here, check it out." She stands up and rewinds the video, then presses play.

" ..._is a monitoring station where the activities of participants in DHARMA Initiative projects can be observed and recorded_."

"Projects," she emphasizes. "More than one. So, maybe some of these TVs are connected to the other hatches."

"Well, I'm suddenly feeling very stupid," Locke says.

"Perhaps I could patch in one of the other feeds," Sayid suggests. "See if we can get another picture."

The sound of a flushing toilet echoes throughout the small room. Paulo comes out of the bathroom. "Ahhhh. The uh, toilet still works," he informs us. Nikki grabs her temple in embarrassment.

"Anything yet?" Sayid asks.

I look at the TVs, but there's nothing but static.

"Nothing," I inform him.

I hear him make an adjustment. "What about now?"

One of the pictures on a T becomes less fuzzy, showing a chair and table in front of electrical equipment, similar to the stuff around me. "Yeah, you got something," I say to Sayid, who comes out from the panel.

"What is it?" Nikki asks.

"That's a good question," Locke answers.

"Hmmm. Those are computers!" Paulo says. "Great! That's what you're looking for. Now we can get out of here."

I shoot him a dirty look, but Nikki gasps when my eyes leave the screen. I look back and see a man standing there, a giant black eye patch covering the left side of his face. He's also wearing a jumpsuit with the DHARMA logo on it. He peers into the camera for a few seconds, then his hand covers the lens and the video goes back to being just static.

"I guess he'll be expecting us," Locke says.

Everyone starts to gather their things. But soon enough a weird noise sounds from above us, through the open hatch doors. Lock bolts up the ladder and the rest of us follow as fast as we can. I make it up third, behind Locke and Sayid and draw my gun, heading towards the noise.

There's no mistaking it. It's the monster. The giant pillar of black smoke. The last time I spoke about it, I told Sayid what I'd seen, and he said it was my imagination. Now that he's with me I have a chance to prove him wrong. I don't hesitate this time, like I did the first. I bolt towards the sound following Locke and Sayid with Desmond not far behind me. I have no idea where Nikki and Paulo are.

We run for what seems to be about half a mile. Ahead of me I hear Locke call out Eko's name. I see Locke fall to the ground and cradle Eko's body, which is covered in blood. The sounds of the monster are gone again and I can't see any smoke.

Eko's eyes are bloodshot and stare into Locke's intently. He whispers something, but I cannot hear. Locke puts his ear up to Eko's mouth and listens. Eko's body goes limp and his eyes unfocus. Locke pulls his head back and closes Mr. Eko's eyes.

"What did he say, John?" Sayid asks.

Locke looks up at us. "He said, 'We're next.'" He sets Eko on the ground as Desmond grabs a blanket from his pack and covers Eko's body.

"What do you mean, 'we're next?'" I ask Locke.

"Don't ask me. He's the one who said it.

"What happened to him?" Nikki asks.

"Must have been an animal," Locke says and my head jerks up to face him with confusion. "Maybe one of the bears." Interesting that Locke would lie about this. Maybe it's just so he doesn't frighten Nikki and Paulo.

"Are we gonna carry him back?" Nikki asks.

"No. We're gonna bury him here."

"Are we?" asks Desmond.

"The people back in camp…there's just been a few too many funerals lately. Nobody needs to see him like this. I'll slip back to the beach and get a couple of shovels."

"I'll come with you," Sayid volunteers.

"No I'll be back in an hour."

"It's not safe to go alone, John."

"I appreciate your concern," Locke says, taking off, but Sayid follows him anyway, leaving me alone with Nikki, Paulo, and Desmond.

* * *

><p>"His name was Boone," I say, looking at Eko's body.<p>

"Pardon?" Desmond asks. Nikki and Paulo went looking for some food a few minutes ago.

"The guy who owned this necklace. His name was Boone."

"And what happened to him?"

"He fell from that cliff back there. The plane was perched in the canopy and he climbed up to it. But it fell while he was still inside. Locke was the only on with him, so for a while that's who I blamed."

"And you and Boone. You two were…?"

"We weren't really anything," I say. "I guess at the time, I thought we were a big something, but now I try to look back on it, and it doesn't feel like much."

Desmond reaches into his pack and pulls out a piece of paper. No, a photograph. He hands it to me. The edges of the paper are burned. Desmond's face smiles from the photo, his arm around a pretty woman. "That's Penny," Desmond says. "She's the reason I'm here. I told you I was on a solo sailing race around the world. Her father was the sponsor of the race. I wanted to win it because I thought I had something to prove. Instead I crashed on this bloody Island."

"Where is she now?"

"I don't know. But I'm gonna find her," he says, a look of determination on his face.

"So you still love her."

"I haven't seen her in over three years, but, yeah, I do love her. She's my One."

I hand the photograph back to him. "That's really sweet, Desmond. And here I thought you were just some Scottish pervert."

He chuckles. "Sorry about that. I haven't had much human contact in a while."

Locke and Sayid return with the shovels, but they only brought two. They dig and Nikki and Paulo show up with a small load of papayas. Sayid trades places with Desmond and Locke trades with Paulo and they keep digging the grave.

It doesn't take long and we've buried Eko's body. We all stand and surround the grave. Locke starts to speak. "When the hatch exploded, your prayer stick fell out of a tree right on top of me. So, Sayid and I came out to get it, because it didn't seem right to bury you without it. I'd like to think you died for a reason, Mr. Eko. I just hope that it's not too long before we find out what the heck it might be."

Locke bends down and starts hitting Eko's Jesus Stick into the ground as a grave marker. "Rest in peace, Mr. Eko. Thank you for helping me find my..."

Hi voice trails off as he looks at the Jesus Stick. I peer over his shoulder. Eko inscribed different bible verses to the handle of the stick. "_Lift up your eyes and look North_" is carved into the side.

"John?" I ask. "Is everything okay?"

He stands up, holding the stick. "We need to get back to camp."


	4. Day 73: Crazy Des-y

"Lift up your eyes and look North"? Locke has informed us that he intend to travel north to find our captured friends. This is so typical John Locke.

We made it back to camp after dark and went to our tents, luckily able to avoid contact with anyone. Nikki and Paulo agreed to keep what we saw at The Pearl secret, but who knows if they'll actually do it.

Locke sent Desmond to get Hurley and Charlie. I stand with him and Sayid at the jungle side of the tree line and Des, Charlie, and Hurley show up soon. "What happened?" Charlie asks.

"Eko is dead," Locke tells him.

"We found his body in the jungle," Sayid says. "Buried him yesterday."

"How did he die?"

"The Island killed him," Locke answers and I roll my eyes.

"What do you mean 'the Island killed him'?" Charlie asks, but Locke doesn't respond. "What do you mean 'the Island killed him'?" Charlie asks again.

"You know what it means," Locke answers. "With the doctor gone, the camp's on edge enough without people having to worry about what's out here in the jungle. They're going to look to you two to see how to react," he says, nodding to Hurley and Charlie. "So when I tell everyone what happened I need you to help keep things calm."

"Dude, you okay?" Hurley asks. I look up and follow his gaze to Desmond, who's looking agitated and jumpy, staring off into nowhere. "Hey guys, what's wrong with Desmond?"

The next thing I know Des takes off ou of the jungle and onto the beach. Instinctively, my legs follow him. I see him rip off his shirt and dive into the water. "What is he doing?" Sayid calls behind me.

I see Des swim intently further out to sea. In the distance a see a blob of blonde hair, really far out. "There's someone else out there," I say, running closer to the shore. I have the biggest sense of déjà vu ever and I'm thrust back to our sixth day on the Island when Joanna Miller drowned going for a swim. Boone tried to save her, but almost died himself.

Desmond has reached the blonde bob of hair and starts swimming it back. I recognize it now. "Claire!" Charlie shouts, confirming my thoughts.

Des makes it back to shore and Charlie calls Claire's name, but she hangs limp in Desmond's arms. "I've got her," Des says to Charlie, pushing him off.

"Is she okay?" Charlie asks, frantically. "Claire! What happened?"

Des drops Claire in the sand. "Just stand back; give me some room!" Charlie tires to intervene again, but Des pushes him away. "Get back, Charlie. I know what I'm doing."

"Is she breathing? She's not breathing."

Desmond starts to perform CPR. It's an excellent technique and if it had been bad, I would have taken over, but Des does know what he's doing. A few pumps to the chest later, Claire coughs up a whole lug of seawater.

"Claire!" Charlie exclaims in relief.

"Are you alright?" Des asks her. "Come on; you're okay. Let's get you back to the tent," he picks her up and carries her away. Charlie tries to follow, but once again Des blocks him. "It's alright, Charlie. Alright, let's get her back to her tent."

"Is she okay? Let me help."

"I got it, Charlie."

"Where are you going?" Charlie calls after him. "Hey, how did you know? How did you know she was drowning?" But Desmond ignores her.

"I'll tell you how he knew," Hurley says. "That guy sees the future, dude."

I turn to Hurley. "He can see the future?"

"You weren't here, dude. While you were on the other side of the Island in the boat, a freak lighting storm happened. Desmond placed this weird golf club contraption outside of Claire's tent and it, like, caught the lighting, dude."

"So you're saying that he knew at a 'freak lighting storm' was going to happen and that Claire was pulled out in a riptide?"

"Dude, I'm not crazy! When I was on my way back from the Other's boat dock, I found Desmond in the jungle completely naked! He said the hatch blew off his underwear!"

"He said that?"

"Well, he didn't deny it!"

"Hurley," Charlie interjects. "Tia's right. People can't see the future. Especially not wankers like him."

"So he saves Claire's life before you can and that makes him a wanker? That's hardly fair, Charlie," I defend.

"Piss off."

* * *

><p>A couple hours later Hurley and I are washing clothes and Charlie runs up to us. "Hurley's right."<p>

"About the future thing?" I say. "Not this again."

"No, I don't think he can see the future, but I do think there's something weird about him."

"Like what, dude?" Hurley asks.

"I don't know, but I think I know a way we can get him to tell us." Charlie waves us over to follow him. "I don't buy this precognitive insanity rubbish. Look, if the bearded wonder could predict the future he wouldn't have ended up here, would he?" We've made it to Sawyer's tent and Charlie crawls inside. "Well, whatever happened to him, we're going to have to find out what it is."

"You do realize he's going to know your plan before you even come up with it, dude," Hurley points out.

"In that case," Charlie says, pulling out a bottle of amber liquid. "We're going to have to get him really bloody drunk."

"Charlie, why is this so important?"

"You know, Tia, that's your problem. You have no sense of curiosity. Don't you want to know how he did it?"

I let out a breath and grab the bottle. The label on it reads MacCutcheon Whiskey. "Why do you need me there, though?"

"We don't need you there, we need you to watch from a distance. We'll probably get sodding pissed. You can keep a clear head."

"Wow, Charlie, you've really thought this through, huh?"

"I'm telling you Tia, something's up with this guy, and I'm gonna figure it out."

* * *

><p>Hurley and Charlie approach Desmond after dark. I stand a distance away, in the shadows where Des can't see me. "Beautiful evening." Charlie says.<p>

"Aye," Des agrees.

"Say it, dude," Hurley tells Charlie, nudging him in the side.

"This morning," Charlie says. "I'm sorry I wasn't more grateful. Thank you for helping Claire not drown."

"No harm done."

"Excellent. We brought a peace offering, you know, make the truce official."

Desmond eyes the whiskey. "Thanks, but no. I've spent a wee bit too much time drunk as of late."

"This'll be good for us, brother." But Desmond just shakes his head no. "Alright, that's fine. We'll take our drink and go somewhere else."

But Desmond stops them. "What kind of whiskey is that?"

"It's, uh," Charlie looks at the bottle. "It just says MacCutcheon."

Desmond starts laughing his head off. "Alright then, let's have it." Charlie smiles and offers him a cup. "No," Desmond denies. "The bottle, brother. I mean, if you've come to drink, let's drink."

"Alright, let's drink."

Des takes the bottle from Charlie and uncorks it with his teeth. "Cheers," he praises, taking a hearty gulp.

* * *

><p>It doesn't take long and soon the three of them are completely toasted. "Here, Des-y," Charlie says, handing him the bottle.<p>

"Cheers."

"Hey," Hurley slurs. "Do you know any songs about drinking and fighting and girls with one leg?"

"Girls with one leg and a heart of gold!" Charlie and Desmond say together, laughing.

"So, Des-y," Charlie says. Here we go. "Let me ask you something."

"Anything, pal."

"How'd you know Claire was drowning?" Charlie's speech is much more sober now that he's getting down to business.

"I could hear her calling for help," Desmond slurs.

"Oh no you didn't," Hurley counters. "You were like a mile away."

"Well, I suppose I've got good hearing."

"You hear the lightning, as well?" Charlie asks him.

"Excuse me?"

"The lightning. Just by chance you pitch your little rod outside Claire's tent. Two hours later lightning strikes."

"Thanks for the drink, pal." Desmond says, rising from his seat.

Charlie stands with him "Hey, I don't know what you're doing but you best tell us. Oi! You think because you turned some key that makes you a hero? You're no hero, brother. I don't know how you're doing what it is you're doing, but I know a coward when I see one."

Desmond turns around and tackles Charlie, running right at him and knocking them both to the ground. I jump up from my perch and run towards their squall.

"You don't want to know what happened to me when I turned that key!" Desmond shouts into Charlie's face, putting his hands around Charlie's neck. I keep running. Almost there. "You don't want to know! And I don't want to know!"

"Get him off!" Charlie chokes out, noticing me approach.

I grab Desmond's shoulders and try to pull him off Charlie, but boy is this guy strong. Hurley's no help. He just sits over by the fire muttering "dude," over and over in a drunken stupor.

I finally manage to get Des off of Charlie, but only because his grip slackens. Desmond starts crying and I pull him off and he lands in the sand. "You can't change it," Des mutters. "You can't change it no matter what you try to do. You just can't change it."

Hurley has managed to get up and walk over. He makes the crazy sign with his hand.

"He's wankered," Charlie says. He must have not had a lot to drink because he's acting pretty sober. "Let's get him to his tent. Alright, Des, come on. Give me your arm. Come on stand up. Stand up. Okay, okay." Charlie and I manage to carry Desmond to his tent and we drop him down.

"You're a good person, Tia," he says.

"Yeah, don't mention it," I grunt, pulling off his shoes.

"And you're a good man, Charlie. Listen, I'm sorry I tried to strangle you, alright?"

"Oh, fair play, mate. Sorry I called you a coward."

"No, you're right, pal."

"Desmond, you are going to tell me what happened to you."

Des takes a deep breath. "When I turned that key my life flashed before my eyes. And then I was back in the jungle and still on this bloody Island. But those flashes, Charlie, those flashes, they didn't stop."

"So, you're telling me you saw a flash of Claire drowning this morning? That's how you knew how to save her?"

"I wasn't saving Claire, Charlie, I was saving you. This morning you dove in after Claire. You tried to save her but you drowned."

"What are you talking about?" Charlie asks, confused. "I didn't drown."

"When I saw the lightning hit the roof you were electrocuted. And when you heard Claire was in the water you drowned trying to save her. I dove in myself so you never went in. I've tried, brother. I've tried twice to save you, but the universe has a way of course correcting and I can't stop it forever. I'm sorry. I'm sorry because no matter what I try to do you're going to die, Charlie."

Charlie stares at Desmond for a few seconds then stands up and walks away. "Charlie!" I call, running after him.

"You're a good person, Tia," Desmond calls after me.

"Charlie, wait." I catch up to him and grab his arm. "You don't actually believe that, do you?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Because, you said it yourself. You don't believe in his precognition crap."

"Well, he's made one bloody hell of an argument!"

"Charlie, you're tipsy. You need to lay down and go to bed."

"Piss off, Tia. Stop acting like my big sister."

He walks away, toward his and Claire's tent. Hurley stumbles around the beach and almost lands in a fire. I let out a deep breath and make my way over to help him.


	5. Day 74: Graveyard Confessions

"Hey, Boone," I say, crouching down in front of his cross. "So, last night Desmond told Charlie he was gonna die. And as much as I want to believe that Des is a crack-pot, I can't. Because I think it's my fault. Hurley told me he was cursed. That he played the hatch numbers for the lottery and it made him bad luck, but I think it's me.

"Remember I told you how my mom died? And that guy I met in the army, Rory? Ever since then, it's like death follows me. And it's not fair. It's not fair that your life had to end or that Shannon's had to end just because I decide that you're my friend…or more. And now Charlie is gonna die? Is this my fault? Is he the next person on a long list of friends I've made? God knows what's happened to Jack, Kate, and Sawyer. And I don't even consider Jack and Sawyer my friends. Maybe Kate, but that's a recent development.

I stop and take a breath. "I'm sorry I'm rambling. It's just, these stupid thoughts in my head are killing me. And there's nothing to do to make them go away. Jack's gone and everyone at camp is looking for someone to tell them that everything's gonna be okay. That we're all gonna see the sun rise tomorrow. Live together, die alone, all that Jack crap.

"I just wish you were here. You'd tell me I was being crazy and I'd actually believe you. Wouldn't that be nice?"

I stand and start to leave, but I turn back at the last second. "Thanks for the necklace. It's like a part of you is with me." I hold the talisman on the cord and walk back to my tent.


	6. Day 75: You All Everybody

Charlie is sitting at the edge of camp, plucking at his guitar strings. "Where'd you learn to play?" I ask him.

"You're kidding right?" I shake my head. "I was in a band!" he says, his eyes lighting up.

'What, like when you were a teenager?"

"No, mate. I was the bassist of Drive Shaft!"

"Drive Shaft? That dinky British band? You're kidding."

"No I'm not! 'You All Everybody'? My brother Liam and I wrote that song. And we're not dinky!"

"I had no idea, man." I remember the day the cave collapsed on him and Jack. Charlie had yelled out "I'm a bloody rock god!"

"Yeah, well not like it matters now. But I've been working on a few songs for when we get rescued! Wanna hear 'Monster Eats the Pilot'?"

"I'll pass. I actually came here to check on you. You've been a little mopey lately."

"Well forgive me if learning that I'm gonna die has put me in a foul mood."

"Do you really think you're gonna die? You really think Desmond told the truth, that he can see the future?"

"I don't know. That guy's a wanker. I don't know what to believe."

"Remember how after you killed Ethan, Sayid and I told you that you weren't alone?"

"Yeah."

"You're still not alone. You have so many people that care about you here. Don't dwell on some precognitive crap from a drunk Scotsman. If you are gonna die, just try living life to the fullest while you can, okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll get right on that." He starts plucking at the guitar strings again.

I think I may have just made the situation worse.


	7. Day 76: They're Back

Sun and Jin are pouring bowls of cereal. Nikki and Paulo argue about DHARMA Nutri-bars at the kitchen. I don't really care about Nutri-bars or cereal, I'm just watching over Charlie, who's sitting at the dining table with Claire, moping around again.

Hurley runs up to the table, gasping for breath, holding something in his hand. "Hey! Hey! Hey everyone! Hey!" he calls.

"Hurley, what is it?" Claire asks.

"Is it the Others?" asks Paulo.

I pipe up. "Hurley, are you okay?"

"What's going on man?" Paulo asks again.

"Car!" Hurley wheezes out, holing up his hand. He's holding a key with a rabbit's foot dangling off. "I found a car tipped over in the jungle."

"You found a car?" Nikki asks, skeptically.

"And we could totally fix it and get it going again. It's not far, come on."

"Why do we need to start a car?" Paulo asks.

"Because it'll be fun. Everyone at the table starts exchanging looks. "We could all use some fun. I mean, after everything's that happened we need it." He turns to Charlie. "Especially you, dude. So who's with me?"

"Well, I've got to cut some bananas. Sorry," Paulo apologizes, grabbing Nikki by the belt loop and pulling her away.

"I don't think so, Hurley," Charlie passes.

"Come on. Anyone?" Hurley pleads. "We're going to drive it! Who's coming?" Everyone starts walking away. "Tia?" he asks me.

"It sounds like fun, Hurley, but I need to work out some stuff with Sayid today." I get up and walk away.

* * *

><p>I'm inside my tent, cleaning my glock when I hear voices outside, shouting Kate and Sawyer's names. I get out and my gaze follows the running survivors to the edge of camp, where Kate and Sawyer are walking towards us.<p>

I stick the glock in my pants and bolt over to them, running into Sawyer's arms. We've never been that close. Actually I kind of detest Sawyer, but seeing him and Kate return to camp has lifted my spirits immensely.

"Jesus, Brown Eyes," Sawyer says, catching me. "I didn't think you be that happy to see me."

I hug his around the neck. "I can't believe you're back." I say into his ear. "I didn't know what happened."

"Yeah, well a few scrapes and scratches, but we're not too bad."

I let go and see Kate keeping her distance. I look around and notice something's wrong. I look up at Sawyer. "Where's Jack?"

He bows his head. "The doc didn't make it," he says somberly.

I jog over to Kate. She smiles as she gives me a hug. "Where's Sayid?" she asks me.

I pull back. "Probably with Locke. What happened to Jack?"

"Come with me."

I follow her to her tent. She's wearing a nasty, but once pretty flowered shirt and a pair of dirt covered jeans. She steps inside and starts changing her clothes.

"What happened out there, Kate?" I ask.

"Well, that guy, Henry. His name's not Henry."

"Yeah I gathered that."

"His name is Ben and he's their leader."

"That's what Hurley said."

"You and I were right. They're not hillbillies. They took us to a smaller Island, about a mile away from this one. They put Sawyer and me in cages made for animals, kind of like a zoo. They made us work."

"Work on what?"

"I don't know. We hauled rocks."

"So what was on this other island?"

"A DHARMA station. I don't know what it's for."

"What happened to Jack?"

"They made him stay behind to perform some kind of surgery on Ben. But he stopped the surgery so we could escape. He made me and Sawyer leave without him. A woman helped us escape."

"So Jack is still there, on this other island?"

"No, I don't think so. I think they promised they'd take him home if he did the surgery, so they would have brought him back to their home, here on this Island."

"Home? How can they do that?"

She comes out of the tent. "I don't know. It's not like they told me all of their secrets. Let's find Sayid."

* * *

><p>He's with Locke at the tree line. Kate explains everything she's told me.<p>

"Why did you leave?" Sayid asks accusingly. "Why would you even consider leaving Jack behind?"

"He told us to leave him. Then he said not to come back."

"Why did he say don't come back?" Sayid asks.

"He sacrificed himself so we could escape. He probably didn't want it to be for nothing," she says. "We need to go after him. Get him back." She heads over to the water hole and fills a bottle.

"Hurley told us they released Michael and Walt," Sayid say.

"Yep. They gave Michael a boat. He took off and never looked back."

"Did you see any other boats?"

"No, but something tells me they didn't give away their only one."

"So they can leave the island?" Locke asks.

"I don't know, John."

"This zoo where they held you, is that where they live?" Sayid asks.

Kate shakes her head. "We escaped with one of them. A kid named Karl. He says that they live on this island. He could have taken us there but Sawyer let him go."

"Why?" I ask.

"You're going to have to ask Sawyer." She caps her bottle and starts walking away.

"Kate, where are you going?" Sayid asks.

"I don't care what Jack said. They've got him and we've got to get him back. I owe him that. I'm going to get help."

"Help from who?" Locke asks.

She ignores him and heads back to her tent.

* * *

><p>Kate didn't come out until after dark. I nudge Sayid and he looks up. He grabs his rifle and we get up to follow her. We pass Locke, who rises and comes with us.<p>

We follow Kate into the jungle. "Kate, if you were looking for help to find Jack why didn't you ask us?" Sayid says, startling her and making her turn around.

"Two reasons: you don't know where to look and you're not motivated. And I don't blame you. Why would you want to go on another trek across the island, risk more lives just to get Jack back?"

"You're wrong," Locke says.

"Oh, really? Then why didn't you come after—,'

"Not about the motivation, just about knowing where to look. We got a compass bearing, and I'm pretty sure if we follow it it'll lead us right to him."

"How?"

"Because of the way the sunlight hit Mr. Eko's stick when John was burying him," I say, drawing out the sarcasm.

"So now you know our secret, how about you tell us yours?" Locke says to Kate.

Instantly there are several gunshots from deeper in the jungle. "No, no, no, don't shoot. Don't shoot," Kate says, raising her arms in surrender. "It's alright! It's safe! We're just here to talk! You can come out!"

Danielle Rousseau comes out of the jungle. "What are you doing here?" she asks, looking at the four of us.

"I came to ask for your help," Kate says.

"To do what?"

"I'm heading to the Other's camp, and if I'm going to find it, I need someone who knows the island."

"What makes you think I have an interest in helping you?"

"Because they had me, and they would have never let me go. Probably would have killed me if I hadn't escaped. And the girl who helped me escape, she was about sixteen years old and her name was Alex. I'm pretty sure that she's your daughter."

Rousseau's face shows a look of pure shock. She lowers her gun. "When do we leave?"


	8. Flashback: Photographs

Afghanistan, June 2004

I ran the ball down the field, maneuvering through the other players. I'd never been much of a jock, but this place has brought out a real competitive streak in me.

"Catch her, Collins!"

"I can't! She's too damn quick!"

I kicked the ball. Stuckey made a dive for it and…_swish_! It landed right into the net.

"Hell yes!" my teammates cheered.

"That's game point! Samuels wins it for the blue team!" the ref called.

Troy and Burton lifted me onto their shoulders. I felt so great. I should have played soccer in high school, but didn't figure out I was any good until the army, forced to play in the dry heat of Afghanistan. Go figure.

Tory and Burton put me down. "Hell of a game, Samuels," Gibbs said, approaching me.

"Thanks, Gibbs."

"Mail call!" Carter called from the door of the barracks. Everyone from the blue team filed inside.

"Burton, Collins, Harvey, Stuckey, Samuels," Carter called from her list.

She tossed me my thick envelope. The stamp was from Ghana, Africa and I knew who it was from immediately. There was a handwritten letter inside, along with another envelope. I started with the letter first.

"Big Sissy Boss Pants," It read.

_I'm writing you this letter on my final day serving for the Peace Corps. I know you're off saving the world right now, but Donny told me that you get leave in four months, and so I've planned the next four months of my life all around you, Sista._

_I'm getting married. Her name is Sonja. We've planned the wedding for October, just so you can be there. I know that if you were here, the first thing you'd ask me would be if I love her, and I do. I love her more than Gran's Wisconsin Cheese Curds (and you know how much I love those cheese curds)._

_But in all seriousness, I love her with all my heart, Tia. _

_I know that your second question would be "Are you going to invite Dad?" Don't get furious with me, but yes, I am. How can I not, Tia? He's out father. And just because he's coming does not meant that you're backing out. Sonja wants you in her wedding party. I know you two have never met, but she's totally the kind of person you'd get along with. She's funny and smart and hot damn, is she beautiful. _

_I can't wait to see you, Big Sis. Sonja is teasing me because I've started carrying around a piece of paper, crossing off the days until I can get home and see you and Donny again. _

_Love, _

_Gil_

I ran to the latrines at the barracks and tore open the smaller envelope. It was full of pictures of Gil and who I could only guess was Sonja. Pictures of them farming, gathering water, playing with little African kids.

She was beautiful. Her brown hair fell just past her shoulders and her striking green eyes smiled up from the glossy print of the photograph.

Gil was in every single one. His blue eyes, crinkling at the sides, his face full of freckles. Gil never could tan, being a ginger and all. I felt a tug in my heart that I hadn't felt in so long trying to pull me back home. I liked my life here, but I desperately wanted a break. I wanted to see my little brother.

There was a knock on the latrine door. "Samuels? You in there?"

I wiped the single tear from my eye and opened the door. Gibbs was standing there, still wearing his rec clothes. "I'm fine Gibbs," I said to him. "You wanna let me by?"

He stepped to the side and I passed him, making for my sleeping quarters to change out of my rec clothes. "You wanna talk about it?" he asked me.

"Talk about what, Gibbs?"

"'Bout that letter in your hand. You ran off so fast after you finished it, I didn't get to brag about the beer my folks sneaked to me in an empty Pringle's can."

"No, I think I'm just gonna get ready for mess."

"Come on, Samuels. This beer ain't gonna drink itself," he taunts, shaking a Sour Cream and Onion can of Pringles at me. "I've also got an audio tape recording of the Red Sox game if talking's too big an issue."

I smiled at him. I never could resist Rory Gibbs. I spent the afternoon in the men's quarters, sipping on Coors Light and listening to the Red Sox lose.


	9. Day 79: Patchy Circumstances

"We need to eat," Sayid says, stopping us.

"Are we still on course?" Locke asks.

Sayid pulls out a compass. "We're still heading north on a bearing of three-oh-five. Yes."

"I'm sensing a lack of confidence."

"We've been walking for two days, following a compass bearing provided by the carvings on a stick!"

"And?" Locke counters.

"You really think we're just going to chance upon where the Others are?"

"I don't know what we're going to chance upon, Sayid, but my bearing is the only bearing we got."

"I'm going to find some fruit, and then, John, we'll have a rational conversation regarding our next move."

We sit down. "Can someone explain the bearings thing again?" Kate asks.

"When we buried Eko," I explain. "Locke went back into the jungle to get his Jesus Stick. The one he carried around with him everywhere that had all that Bible scripture on it. So Locke was pounding the stick into the ground as a grave marker when the sun magically shined through the trees, highlighting one of the verses. 'Lift up your eyes and look North' John 3:05. Now Locke believes that the scripture was meant for him.

"It was meant for me," Locke says. "And it's leading us to the right place."

"Lower your voices," Sayid says, coming out of the tall brush.

"Where's the fruit?" I ask him.

"Never mind the fruit. There is a house back there," he says, pointing with his thumb.

"What do you mean 'a house'?" Rousseau asks.

"A somewhat large blue building with a man living inside. There is a cow and a few other animals, but he was the only man I saw."

"What did he look like?" Locke asks.

"Like the man we saw in the Pearl station."

"The guy with the eye patch?" I ask.

Sayid nods his head.

"What are you talking about?" Kate asks.

"Never mind," Sayid says. "We need to scout out the perimeter. Follow me."

Sayid crouches in the brush and leads the rest of us through. He hold up his hand to stop us, and just like he said, a blue house with farm animals surrounding it, including a cow and a saddled horse. I even spot a fluffy domesticated cat with a bell around its neck sitting on the fence.

"I'm going to circle the perimeter. Wait for me here," Sayid instructs, pulling his rifle off his back.

* * *

><p>He returns a few minutes later. "You sure it's completely isolated?" Locke asks.<p>

"I've circled the house. Nothing but jungles surrounding it. Here," Sayid says, handing binoculars to Locke.

"Does that dish still work?" Locke asks, pointing the binoculars over to the side of the blue house where a large satellite dish sits there.

"A satellite dish of that size would have broadcasting capabilities for thousands of miles. Danielle, you once mentioned a radio tower. Is this it?"

"I have never been here before," she answers.

"The man in the house," Kate says. "You said you've seen him before?"

"On a video feed from the Pearl Station," I answer.

"So who is he?"

"Only one way to find out," Sayid says, removing his gun and handing it to me. "We ask him."

"What's this for?" I ask.

"If I'm unarmed, he won't feel threatened. In case he is threatened, you cover me from here."

Behind me I feel Rousseau stand. "Hey, where are you going?" Kate asks her.

"I have no interest in that man inside the house. I have survived on the island precisely by avoiding these types of encounters. I'll wait for you by the stream, for those of you who survive."

Sayid stands and starts walking toward the house with his hands raised. He makes it about halfway when something catches his eye. His face jerks to the side.

BOOM! A gunshot fires from the house and Sayid's body contracts from the gunshot, hitting him in the arm.

Kate tries to stand, but Locke and I pull her back down. "No, he's been hit. He's been hit," she protests.

"Not yet," Locke counters. "Do you want to get shot too?"

"I didn't cross the line!" I hear an accented voice call from the house. I look through the brush and see Patchy, holding a gun. "We had a truce! This is my land! You said I could stay here!"

"I'm not who you think I am!" Sayid calls from the ground. "My name is Sayid Jarrah! I was on a plane that crashed here months ago!"

"A plane?"

"I'm unarmed, I swear!"

Patchy lowers his gun. "Stay right there!" he calls, leaving the window.

We brake our cover and I run for Sayid, crouching down beside him and helping his sit up. The bullet hit him in the left bicep. If I had the tools, this would be so easy to fix. Non-fatal gunshot wounds are my specialty.

The door to the house opens and Patchy is there, holding his rifle pointed right at me. Locke and Kate fire a few shots a piece and Patch backs off.

"Drop the rifle!" Locke shouts and Patchy follows his orders. "Stop, right now. Back up. Back up." Locke picks up his gun.

"Are you all right?" I ask Sayid. He nods, frantically and I manage to get him on his feet. Kate keeps Patchy covered with her gun.

"You really did crash here?" Patchy asks us.

"Over forty of us, yes," Sayid gasps.

"I'll go in first. Make sure it's ok," Locke says, going into the house.

"Who are you?" Kate asks Patchy.

"My name is Mikhail Bakunin and I am the last remaining member of the DHARMA Initiative."

Sayid puts his arm around me and I help him inside. Mikhail opens the door for us. Kate lowers her gun. "Please, sit," Mikhail instructs, leading us towards a long couch in the center of the room. I drop Sayid down and his eyes bug out with pain.

I take off Sayid's rifle and start to check out the wound, but Mikhail stops me. "Here, let me." He starts inspecting the wound.

"You have experience treating gunshot wounds?" I ask.

"I spent some time in Afghanistan. I had experience with field medicine in the Soviet Army."

"Small world," I mutter.

Mikhail looks at me with his single eye. "You were not in the Soviet Army."

"No, I was in the American one. In Afghanistan. Different war, though."

"She was also a field medic, so maybe you could—," Kate starts, but I cut her off.

"No I wasn't. I was a helicopter paramedic."

Mikhail nods his head towards me. "It is a pleasure to meet another veteran. If you could, in the kitchen, on the top shelf there is a medical kit. Will you bring it please?"

I look at Sayid skeptically.

"It's alright, Tia," he says.

I move to the kitchen and spot a pantry. I find the kit quickly and bring it back. I don't see Locke anywhere. I wonder where he's gone off to.

"How did you get here?" Sayid asks, when I sit back down.

"I almost don't know where to begin," Mikhail says.

"Why don't you begin with the DHARMA Initiative?"

"I grew up in Kiev and joined the Soviet Army. I was stationed at a listening post at Vladivostok. After the Cold War, after we lost the Cold War, my unit was decommissioned. I was dismissed from my life in the military. And after years of conducting unpleasant actions against our enemies, I found myself wanting to do something good. So I replied to a newspaper advertisement."

Mikhail placed a pair of glasses on the bridge of his nose and stared sterilizing the equipment in the medical kit during this story.

"An advertisement?" Sayid asks.

"'Would you like to save the world?' it read. That's how I met them, the Initiative. They're very secretive, very rich, very smart."

"So, when did you come to the island?"

"Eleven years now. I like computers, communications equipment, being alone like a lighthouse keeper. So they put me in this station. They called it The Flame."

"What is the purpose of The Flame?"

"To communicate with the outside world, of course," Mikhail says.

"What happened to the DHARMA Initiative?"

"They're all dead, of course. They foolishly initiated a war against the Hostiles. The Purge they called it."

"How did you survive this purge?"

"By not participating in it. I told you, I like being alone."

"And the Hostiles allowed you to stay here?"

"After it was over, four men appeared in the yard. They offered a truce. They said to imagine a line that extended all the way across the valley. As long as I did not cross it, I would be left alone. Then they took two cows and I never saw them again."

"They weren't interested in the satellite dish in the yard?" Kate asks.

"Why would they be? It hasn't functioned for years."

"Who are they, these hostiles?" Sayid asks.

"I do not know. But they were here a long time before we were. A very long time."

Mikhail has prepared all of his tools. He grabs the small clamps that resemble a fancy pair of tweezers. He digs it into Sayid's arm with no warning other than a glance. Sayid screams in pain as Mikhail removes the bullet and drops it into a bowl.

Sayid's head falls into my bad shoulder and I do my best to grit through the sudden pain. Mikhail is now holding a needle and surgical thread, waiting to close the bullet hole. I sit Sayid back up to let Mikhail continue. As he sews he mutters something in Russian to the gray cat with the bell, who's now perched on the window. "What did you just say?" Sayid asks him.

"I told Nadia to be polite because you are my guests."

"Nadia?"

"Mm-hm. After Nadia Comaneci, the greatest athlete the world has ever known," He nods to a picture of a gymnast on a balance beam. "We have the same birthday." He ties a knot in the surgical thread. "Excellent work if I say so myself," he praised, putting the tools back in the kit.

"Thank you, Mikhail," Sayid says, landing back on my shoulder, more gently this time.

Mikhail stands. "Perhaps I can begin to earn your forgiveness by offering you some iced tea. I will also check on your friend."

He leaves with the kit and heads into the kitchen. I notice he's left a roll of bandages on the coffee table. I sit Sayid back up and grab it, beginning to wrap it around Sayid's fresh bullet wound, which has started to bleed again. Kate sits in the armchair closest to us. I notice her confused face. "What's wrong?" I ask her.

"It just doesn't make any sense. Why would they let him stay here with all this stuff, all this equipment?"

"Yeah, you're right. I was wondering the same thing."

"Actually, it makes perfect sense," Sayid counters.

"What are you talking about?" Kate asks.

"The reason they let him stay here is because he is not DHARMA. He is one of them."

"He shot you and you just let him—,"

I cut her off. "Why are we still sitting here?" I ask him.

"We are sitting here because I am certain he is not alone."

He does not have time to explain because Mikhail has returned with four large glasses of tea, placed on a serving tray. He sets it down on the coffee table and begins to pass it out. "I grow the tea myself. So pardon the sweetness."

"Any tea is good tea," Sayid smiles, accepting the glass.

"Do you know how long it's been since we've seen ice?" Kate says.

Mikhail smiles as he hands me my glass. I don't take a drink.

"I noticed a series of thick wires as I walked around the station," Sayid continues.

"This is the hub. But they go around to various stations on the Island."

"And these cables, do any of them run into the ocean?"

"Yes. There is an underwater beacon that emits solar pings to help guide in the vessels."

"By vessels, you mean submarines."

"Yes. The Initiative used it to bring us to the island. But I can only imagine that the Hostiles have either destroyed it or commandeered it by now."

"That explains how they are able to get around our position and capture our sailboat, Tia."

"You have a sailboat?" Mikhail asks, his eye jumping between Sayid and I.

"Until we lost it to your Hostiles," I say.

"That's very unfortunate."

"Well," Sayid says, leaning forward and placing his glass on the table. "At least we were able to kill one of them." He's right. Sun told me about her struggle for her life when she was stuck on the boat. She ended up shooting a woman in the stomach.

Mikhail looks up at us and grins maliciously. "Why are we continuing to play this little game when we all know it has moved to the next stage?"

He grabs the pitcher of tea and throws it against the wall, startling Kate. Sayid makes to attack him, but Mikhail kicks Sayid in the stomach, flattening him against the wall behind us. I stand and Mikhail slaps me across the face and I fall to the ground.

I haven't been hit by a man in two years. The old sting against my cheek sends a rage though me that I cannot describe. I hear him slap Kate and she falls next to me, her eyes closed. Mikhail has Sayid in a fist fight. I grab the rifle off the couch as Sayid gets the upper hand and kicks Mikhail onto the floor in front of me. I point the rifle at his head and kick him in the face. My father's features replace those of Mikhail's for a second, giving him two blue eyes instead of a single brown one. Then, in an instant it's gone.

Kate gets up off the ground, holding her rifle on Mikhail with me. Locke comes out of a room, from God knows where, his pistol pointing forward. "Get some rope," Sayid tells him, clutching his fresh bullet wound, sending Locke back into the room he came from.

Mikhail looks up at me with his beady eye, blood streaming from his nose. I can't help it. I take the butt of my rifle and his him in the head, knocking him out. Locke returns with the rope and he and Sayid tie up Mikhail's wrists and ankles. "How do you know he's not alone?" Kate asks Sayid.

"The horse is still saddled outside, and the stirrups are set for someone much shorter than this man."

"You think the Others sent someone out here to keep him company?" Locke asks.

"I think they sent someone out here because they lost communication."

"Maybe when the sky turned purple."

"That would be my guess.

"Well, if they sent somebody out here, they're hiding pretty good. I checked every nook and cranny of this place."

Sayid grabs the edge of the rug Mikhail is lying beside and flips it away, revealing a trap door. "Not every nook and cranny, John."

We move the rug away completely and Sayid opens the door. A small amount of light shines from below. "Tia, you stay up here with John," Sayid instructs.

"No, I'll be fine," Locke protests. "She should go with you two."

"Very well," he says taking his rifle back from me. "Here we go."

We head down the trap door, my glock in my hand. The light I saw is coming from a small lantern hanging on a peg. Kate takes it from its perch and uses it as a light. She shines it up on a small rectangle pinned to the top of the wall. I recognize the small brown package. "What is it?" She asks.

"C4 explosives." I answer.

Sayid's eyes dart around the walls. "The entire place is wired," he says, pointing out the wires from the small brown explosive leading to other C4s around the basement.

"Why?" Kate asks.

"I don't know."

He grabs a flashlight from the small table next to him and tries it out. It turns on and adds more light to the room. I follow him to a door and Kate moves in a different direction. Sayid kicks open the door and we enter a small room. There is a large set of shelves holding thick binders with the DHARMA logo on them. Sayid grabs one off the shelf. _DHARMA Initiative Food Drop Protocol_ is printed on the cover. He replaces the binder and grabs another. _DHARMA Initiative Operations Manuel_ printed on this one. He opens it and flips through it. I grab another binder off the shelf. DHARMA Initiative Communications Directory. DHARMA Initiative Medical Protocol. The amount of binders is endless.

I hear a pang in the main room of the basement. I shove the binder back onto the shelf and pull my gun up walking out of the room. Kate and a slim figure are scuffling on the floor. The figure grabs Kate's gun and starts to stand. "Don't even think about it," I tell the figure, cocking my gun so they'll hear it. "Put the gun on the ground."

I move to the side and get a better look at our new foe. It's a woman, black with a long face and wide eyes. She crouches to the ground setting the gun back down. Kate stands and looks at the woman. Her eyes widen and Kate punches her in the face. The woman falls to the ground. "What are you doing?" I ask her.

"She was there! She was at the dock! She was there when we got kidnapped! She knows where Jack is!"

Sayid comes out of the binder room finally. "What's going on?"

"We found Mikhail's friend," I say.

Sayid holds the tip of his rifle up to her neck. "Are there any more of you here?" She doesn't answer. "Let's take her upstairs," he says, grabbing her hands. "John, we're coming up!" he calls up the stairs. We walk up and the woman moves her hands to her head, keeping them there. When we reach the ground floor Locke and Mikhail are gone. "John?" Sayid calls.

"Out here!" we hear him call from outside. Sayid keeps his gun on the woman and we walk outside, my gun raised again.

Mikhail stands outside, a gun on Locke's head. "This is simple," he says. "Send her over to me and I release him, and we all go our separate ways."

"Don't listen to him," Locke says. "If he was going to kill me, I'd be dead already."

"Shut your mouth!"

"Listen to me," Sayid shouts.

"Sayid, do not let her go," Locke tells him.

"I will execute you right here!" Mikhail shouts.

"He's not going to do it!"

"Be quiet, John!" Sayid shouts.

"I'm the only thing keeping him alive!" Locke says.

"I swear to you!" Mikhail threatens.

"Calm down everyone!" Sayid yells.

The woman and Mikhail start speaking in Russian. I can't understand a word.

"Don't let her talk to him!" Locke shouts.

He and Sayid argue over the woman and Mikhail, the two conversations blending together. Sayid shouts at Mikhail, telling him to stop. Then the woman shouts out in English "Just do it, Mikhail!"

Mikhail pushes Locke away and shoots the woman in the chest. She falls to the ground and I see Locke advance on Mikhail.

"John!" Sayid calls out. Mikhail and Locke fight but Sayid runs over, hitting Mikhail witht he butt of his rifle.

Mikhail lands on the ground, the tip of the barrel of Sayid's gun at his throat. "Finish it! Kill me!" Mikhail cries. But Sayid removes the gun and walks back towards me.

* * *

><p>Kate and Locke went back into The Flame to make sure we didn't miss anything. Sayid and I tie up Mikhail's hands again and we walk him into the brush by gunpoint as darkness falls. "Danielle! Danielle!" Sayid calls for Rousseau. "Tell me something," he says, turning back to Mikhail. "Were you ever a member of the DHARMA Initiative? Or was everything you said a lie? Of course, I'm wasting my breath."<p>

"I was never a member," he says. "But everything else I told you was true. I moved into this station after the Purge."

"The Purge? In which a group of scientists attacked your people?"

"Believe what you want, but that is what happened."

Rousseau comes out of the brush, holding her gun on Mikhail. "Your friends, did he kill them?" she asks.

"No. They are collecting whatever is useful from the farmhouse," Sayid answers. "And now we have our ticket to where the Others live, where we will find your daughter, and Jack, and finally, perhaps, a way home."

"There is nothing you could do to me to make me lead you there."

"I didn't say you were our ticket, did I?" Sayid reaches into his pack and pulls out a laminated sheet of paper. "This is a map showing electrical and data cabling running from the Flame, here," he points. "To a place called the Barracks, here. It's comprised of houses and dormitories, with water and power large enough to accommodate an entire community. Sounds like a place well worth visiting, don't you think?"

"There will come a time when your guard is down," Mikhail says. "And when it is, I will not hesitate a moment before killing you. You should know this before you—,"

Rousseau cuts him off. "He is making an excellent point. You have a map. Why keep him alive? We should kill him, Sayid. He already told us he would kill us."

"No," Sayid says. "He's my prisoner. I will decide his fate."

Kate and Locke meet us in the brush. "Did you find anything?" I ask.

"Actually I just played a silly chess game on his computer again." He turns to Mikhail. "And now I can see why you didn't want me to beat it."

"Meaning what?" Sayid asks him.

BOOOOOM!

The Flame station behind Locke explodes in a giant wave of light, throwing us all into the ground.

When we recover Sayid screams at Locke. "What have you done, John? That place was our one hope of communication with the outside world!"

"The computer said that if there was an incursion of the station by the Hostiles, I should enter 77," he defends. "So I entered 77."

Sayid stands angrily, pulling Mikhail with him. "We should go. If anyone is around this explosion's going to attract their attention."


	10. Day 80: The Pylons

We're sitting around a camp fire. Well, all of us except Rousseau, who stands to the side with Mikhail, who's tied up.

Sayid inspects his electrical map. "From the position of this stream, we should be here, and if the scale is right, his people are two miles in that direction," he points, then turns to Mikhail. "I don't expect you to confirm that."

"It's electrical wiring map, Sayid," Locke says, standing up. "I'm not sure it's as accurate as you think."

"Well it's certainly not as infallible as the magical carvings on your stick."

"Hey, the stick did get us to that station."

"Oh, the station which you accidentally blew up."

"Well, if you'da warned me that the basement was rigged with C4, I might'a been a little more careful."

Kate cuts in, turning to Mikhail. "Why don't you just tell us if we're going to right way?"

"You're going the right way," he answers passively.

"Remind me why we're keeping him alive." Locke asks.

"What do you suggest, we shoot him like a dog?" Sayid counters.

"No, I like dogs."

"He's right," Rousseau says, cutting in. "They will not trade his life for his friend's. We should shoot him."

"Whoa, calm down!" I say. "We're not shooting anybody."

"The map says where they are, and he says the map is right," Kate agrees. "Just keep moving."

* * *

><p>We walk another two miles and Kate pulls out a water bottle. "Water?" she offers it Mikhail.<p>

"No thank you."

"So how'd you get here?" Kate asks him. "How'd you get onto this island?"

"Don't waste your breath," Rousseau says. "Whatever he says will be a lie."

"I was recruited when I was twenty-four," Mikhail answers. "I was approached by a man—,"

Kate cuts him off. "I didn't ask you when, I asked you how."

"They brought me on the submarine."

"So your people," I ask. "They can just come and go whenever they want?"

"Oh yes, but two weeks ago, our underwater beacon stopped emitting its locator signal. There was an event, an electromagnetic pulse. It would be impossible to come back."

"Why would you want to come back to this place?" I ask him.

"You would not understand."

I turn around and face him, stopping the group. "Try me," I say.

"I misspoke," Mikhail grins. "What I meant to say is you are not capable of understanding."

"And why am I not capable?"

"Tia," Sayid warns me.

"Because you are not on the list," Mikhail answers.

"What list?"

"The man who brought me here, who brought all of my people here, he is a magnificent man."

"If this Ben guy is so magnificent, then why did he need one of us to save him?"

"Ben?" Mikhail says, confused. "Ben is not. I will try to make this as simple as I can. You are not on the list because you are flawed. Because you are angry, and weak, and frightened."

"The more I learn about your people," Sayid says to him. "The more I suspect you're not as omniscient as you'd have us believe. Don't speak to us as if you know us."

"Of course I don't know you, Sayid Jarrah. How could I?" Mikhail says. We all look at him with confusion. How does he know Sayid's last name? "And you, Kate Austen," he says, turning to her. "Are a complete stranger to me. And Tia Samuels, you and I couldn't possible know each other, as you pointed out on my couch yesterday. But you John Locke, you I might have a fleeting memory of, but I must be confused, because the John Locke I know was paral—,"

"Hey!" Rousseau shouts from beyond the tree line. "Look at this! Over here, come on."

We walk out of the jungle, facing a large open field. Giant…well I'm not entirely sure what to call them. I guess they're pylons, circle the field, all the way around, as far as I can see. "Well, looks like we're here." Locke says.

"What is it?" Kate asks, walking towards one of the pylons.

Sayid grabs her arm and pulls her back. "Don't touch it! Don't even go near it!" He turns to Mikhail. "What are these pylons?"

"What do you think they are?" he asks.

"A security perimeter," Sayid answers. "Those sensors on the side would be triggered if anyone passed between them. It's an alarm system, or a trap. Either way, we'd be safer going around it."

You're right," Mikhail answers. "It was a security perimeter. But like everything else on this island, it hasn't functioned in years."

"Of course it hasn't," I answer sarcastically.

"If you wish to waste your time, be my guest," Mikhail says. "The pylons encircle the entire Barracks. There is no going around them. If you don't believe me, look at your map."

Sayid grabs the electrical map out of his pocket and I look at it beside him. The forty or so houses on the map labled "Barracks" is indeed circled by tiny dots representing the pylons.

"He appears to be telling the truth," Sayid says.

Locke drops his pack and my eyes shoot up at the thump. He grabs Mikhail and starts walking him towards the pylons.

"John, John!" Sayid shouts in warning.

Locke shoves Mikhail between two pylons, Mikhail ending up on the other side.

The Russian just stares at us. "Thank you," he says, maliciously.

A large pulse sounds out from the pylons and the sight before my eyes is a gruesome one. Mikhail starts foaming at the mouth and twitching, not in control of his body. Blood spurts from the pressure point below his ears. His brain is hemorrhaging. The force of the pylons power throws him onto his back and he lays there, grunting and twitching before his body goes limp.

"Oh my god," Kate exclaims.

Sayid and I stare at Locke in disbelief. "Sorry," he mumbles.

I walk up and bend down, looking at Mikhail's body from our side of the pylons. "I think he just had a cerebral hemorrhage." I look back and Sayid is staring at me. "I think," I say again. "I can't be sure."

"Why did you do that?" Kate shouts at Locke. "We needed him!"

"They were never going to trade him for Jack," he answers.

"You don't know that!"

"Well you don't know it either! What we do know is that he shot one of his own people who didn't want to be in this exact situation. So I'm going to stick with my opinion."

"Yeah, well we could've discussed it."

"Nobody asked me about it when we brought him along in the first place!"

"Alright, everyone calm down!" I say, turning around and standing up.

"Pardon me, for not knowing that they had a— a sonic weapon fence," Locke says. "I didn't know he was gonna die, how would I know that?"

"Why are you really here?" Sayid says to him. "Are you here for Jack?"

"Why else would I be here?" Locke counters.

Sayid stares him down for a few more seconds. "We'll talk about this later," he decides.

"Fine by me," Locke replies. "Just tell me how we're gonna go through this."

"We're not going through it, we're going over it," Kate says. "Sayid, where's the axe?"

"It's in his pack," Sayid says, nodding to Locke.

"No wait a minute I got it," Locke protests, moving to his pack. "Here I got it."

Sayid, noticing the distress in Locke's voice, grabs the pack first, reaching inside. He pulls out a brown box of C4 explosives from The Flame, rigged with wire.

"I thought you didn't know there was any C4?" I say to Locke.

"Well I stand corrected," he says sheepishly.

"Why did you take it?" Sayid asks.

"You never know when a little C4 might come in handy."

"You'll have to do better than that," Sayid says, putting it back in the pack and grabbing the ax instead. He makes for the jungle.

* * *

><p>We work diligently, taking turns hacking at trees with the ax. Eventually, we manage to rig up a long, thick tree, laying it on top of one of the pylons, allowing us to be able to climb over the round sensors that are on the sides of the pylons.<p>

"The system appears to fire a sonic pulse when an object breaks the plane between two pylons. So, as long as we don't break the plane, we should remain unharmed," Sayid says.

"Why don't we just use the plastic explosive you took?" Rousseau asks Locke.

"Be my guest, you wanna go stick it on there?" Locke counters.

"Whoever climbs over, give those sensors a wide berth," Sayid instructs, pointing to the round things on the sides of the pylons.

"I'll go first," Kate volunteers. She climbs in top of the tree and shimmies her way up, reaching the pylon. She pauses momentarily at the sensor, then crosses. I exhale a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. She drops to the ground, landing beside Mikhail's body.

"I guess I'll go next," Locke says.

It takes a few minutes, but eventually, we've all made it across, Rousseau last, dropping down beside me. We ignore Mikhail's body as we follow Sayid across the field, towards the Barracks.

* * *

><p>We come to another grouping of trees and walk inside them, sticking close. Sayid tells us to wait at a distance and he advances before us, leaving for a moment, and then returning.<p>

"What?" Kate asks him.

"We're here."

We follow him to the edge of the tree line. On the other side, beyond the brush I see a series of averaged sized yellow houses. It looks like any suburban neighborhood. I hear a grunt to my left. Jack runs towards us, without seeing us in the brush. He reaches up over his head and catches a football and turns around, throwing it back. It's caught by an old acquaintance of mine.

Jack and a beardless Mr. Friendly are playing football!

Kate stares at them in disbelief. "What is he doing?" she asks, shocked.

Locke tells her to shush as Jack and Mr. Friendly continue their game.

I feel Rousseau beside me, start to leave. "Jack!" a voice calls from the distance. A pretty blonde woman comes out of the house. "She's the one who helped me and Sawyer escape," Kate tells us.

"What's up?" Jack asks her.

"Okay, I think it's going to be tomorrow," she says, catching the ball as Mr. Friendly throws it to her.

Sayid starts moving. "Hey, what?" I ask him.

"Danielle," he says, noticing her absence.

"John, Rousseau's gone," Kate tells him.

Locke ignores her and keeps watching Jack and the blonde woman. He pulls out binoculars to get a better look.

Jack and Blondie walk over onto one of the house porches. Jack exchanges words that I can't hear with a man in a wheelchair.

Henry Gale. AKA Ben, the leader of the Others. Jack shakes his hand, like old pals.

"This is going to be more complicated than we thought," Locke says, lowering the binoculars.

We walk away, back into the trees so they can't hear us. Kate grabs her pack and produces bullets for her rifle, loading it. "I'm getting him back," she says.

"So what's your plan exactly?" I ask her. "To go all commando on their asses and just shoot them at random? That is most certainly going to accomplish nothing, except your death."

"We came here to rescue Jack, and that's what we're going to do," she says.

"But obviously the circumstances have changed," Sayid argues. "He may not want to be rescued."

"That is not him! That's not Jack," she says, clearly upset. "They must have done something to him. When they captured us, they drugged us."

"Kate, he was playing football," I say. "Drugs make you drowsy and incoherent. He wasn't drugged, Kate."

"They kidnapped him! Held him prisoner! He wouldn't just forget that!"

"I agree," Sayid says. "But until we know why, we're putting our lives at risk."

Kate starts walking away. "I'm not leaving him, Sayid."

Sayid grabs her arm, stopping her. "You may not have a choice."

"It's Jack," Locke says, off to the side. "The first time I saw him he was risking his life pulling people out of burning airplane wreckage. If he's shaking hands with the Others, I'm sure he has a good reason. We just have to go down there and find out what it is."

"What do you suggest?" Sayid asks.

"We wait till it's dark, we approach Jack when he's alone. If he wants out, we get him out."

* * *

><p>We wait the extra four hours in the brush of the trees, munching on mangos from my pack, cleaning and loading our guns. After the sun sets, we move back to the tree line. "Sayid, you guard the front. I'll go around and cover the back. Tia, you're at the side, near Sayid," Locke instructs. "Kate, you head in through the side door."<p>

"I'm going in alone?" she asks.

"It's better if you're the first one he sees."

"Alright," she agrees.

I move, keeping close to Sayid, towards the house, my glock pointed at the ground. I watch as Kate moves inside.

It's incredibly quiet in the dark of their neighborhood. I wait, facing the house, hoping Kate can get Jack out of their quickly.

The next think I know, I'm clocked on the back of my head, but they didn't hit the sweet spot. I'm disoriented as I feel them take my glock from my hand. I regain my balance and start struggling against the person that grips my wrists together.

"Stop doing that," a man's voice says to me. But I ignore him and continue to struggle. I hear a punch that must be Sayid. I hope it was him throwing down and not the other way around.

The Other forces me through the front door of Jack's house. I can't get too good of a look, but he shoves me down a hallway and into carpet. Sayid lands down beside me.

"Hold him still!" a man shouts.

Kate calls Jack's name as they force her onto the floor beside me.

The Other giving the orders grabs my hair, pulling my face up to his. "Who else is with you?" I spit in his face and he lets me go. He moves over to Kate. "How 'bout you? Who else is with you?"

"Jack," Kate pleads.

"Just answer the question, Kate," Jack tells her.

"Okay, one more time," the Other in charge says, cocking his gun. "Who else is with you?"

Kate looks at me, then at Sayid. "Nobody. Nobody else, it was just us."

* * *

><p>They take me to another house, handcuffing me to a ceiling post in the middle of its living room, forcing me to sit on the floor in an awkward position.<p>

I sit there for a good half hour, the cuffs chafing my wrists. Mr. Friendly walks through the door.

"Hey there, Tia. Sorry about those handcuffs. But I'm sure if I let you go you wouldn't be to kind to me, would ya?"

I just stare forward. "Where are my friends?" I ask.

"They're fine. Nothing worse than you."

"Why should I believe you?"

"Why shouldn't you?" Mr. Friendly counters.

"Because you've infiltrated my camp. Kidnapped my people. Stolen my guns. Lied about who you really are," I say, gesturing around the room with my head.

"Well, you've got me there," he says. "Maybe we've gotten off on the wrong foot. My name's Tom."

"The wrong foot?" I ask, staring up at him for the first time.

"I can see you're still angry," Tom says.

I let out a chuckle. "Ya think?" I say. I take a deep breath. "How do you know my name?" I ask him.

"I know way more than your name, Tia," Tom says, reaching into his bag and pulling out a thick, red folder. "Tia Maria Samuels. Born to Donald Samuels and Eliza Reynolds April 8, 1981. Two brothers, Donald Jr. and Gilbert Reed. Your mother was shot and killed when you were sixteen by a thug trying to rob her. You dropped out of college twelve credits shy of a Bachelors in Biology at UCLA. You joined the US Army in 2003 as a 91-Bravo helicopter medic. You were shot in the left shoulder four months ago, right after you shot an Arab Forces solder in the head for your defense. You were Honorably Discharged from the military and moved to a facility in San Antonio. A week later, your father had you transferred to a treatment center in Sydney."

He pauses and I stare at the wall. "You done?" I ask him.

"You got any questions?" he asks me.

"What kind of questions?"

"You've been on this Island for eighty days. I've got everything about you, your family, your friends, right here on paper. Anything you want to know?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, most of the people on Flight 815? Their lives haven't really changed too much. But yours, Tia? A lot's happened while you've been here."

"Nice try," I say, looking back up at Tom.

"Excuse me?"

"You're trying to make me curious? Make me ask you for information? I'm not buying it. You want to take Jack away? Let him go off the Island? That's fine with me. I couldn't care less. Jack is a condescending control freak. Go ahead and get rid of him. I just want my friends back, safe. We'll go back to our side of the Island and we won't cross your line."

Tom smiles, standing and holding my red folder. "You don't want to know? That's fine with me. We're probably gonna let you go. Don't know when, but we probably will."

I turn my gaze back to the wall as he exits the room.


	11. Day 81: Gassed

I hear the door to the house open. The blonde woman who was talking to Jack and Ben comes into the room. She's holding a plate with a sandwich in her left hand and a bottle of DHARMA water in the other.

"Are you hungry?" she asks me.

"What happened to your lip?" I ask her noticing it bleeding a little at the corner.

"Your friend Kate didn't appreciate my other sandwich," she says, setting mine down on the table.

I let out a breath. "I guess I could eat."

She walks over, holding a key. "If you try anything…" she warns.

"Don't worry. I just want out of here with my friends. I don't want to hurt anybody." She unlocks my left wrist form the cuff and moves my hand away from the post and back into the bracelet, locking it again. I walk over to the couch and grab the sandwich, taking a bite. Turkey and Swiss cheese.

The blonde woman sits in the chair next to me. "I'm Juliet," she says.

"I'd introduce myself, but I'm guessing you already know who I am."

"Tom told me he showed you your file."

"Yeah, well, I don't really want to know what's happening back home." I say, setting down the sandwich and taking a drink of water.

"Why is that?"

"Because, if you tell me anything about my brothers, I might lose it. And it would be fine if I knew I could see them when the sun comes up, but I know I can't, and that kills me. Hearing about them right now? That would be too painful."

"You're not a very curious person, are you?"

"Never really have been. And trust me, it's bitten me in the ass a couple of times since crashing here." I take the last bite of my sandwich and lean back into the cushions. "So what now?" I ask.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Tom said your people would probably let me and my friends go. Which I will gladly do peacefully. But his 'probably' was very much emphasized."

"I don't know what's next," Juliet says. "But for now, you stay in the house."

"You gonna cuff me back on that post?"

"No, we're gonna cuff you to the swing set outside with Sayid."

I stand up and look out the window. There's Sayid, out in the dawn, the sun just beginning to rise.

Juliet walks over to me. "I'm going to lead you to the swing set," she says. "If you try to run, that man out there, Ryan, he will shoot you in the leg."

"Fair enough." I say.

Juliet grabs my hands in front of me and starts leading me through the house. Right as we reach the front door, it opens. Tom walks through. "Put her back in the living room," Tom says.

"What?" Juliet asks.

"Now, Jules," Tom instructs.

Juliet leads me back into the living room and I sneak one more look out to Sayid, whose head is bent toward the ground.

I hear Tom in the hallway. "Don't tell her too much," Tom says to someone. "Jules, get out here," he calls.

Juliet leaves the room and soon, her figure is replaced by Locke's. "Oh, great," I exclaim. "You were captured too!"

"Only temporarily. Then they let me go," he says, sitting down in the chair.

"They let you go?" I ask, confused.

"I came to say goodbye. I'm leaving with them."

"What are you talking about?" I ask him with disbelief. "What did they offer you? The chance to go home, like Jack? If you think they'll keep their word—,"

"Tia, please stop. I'm going with them because I don't want to leave the Island. And Jack's not going anywhere. Not anymore. I tried to make good cases for you, Kate, and Sayid. Then they told me about Kate, how she murdered her own father. And Sayid, all of the horrible things he'd done in the Republican Guard. I guess forgiveness isn't one of their strong suits."

"And what did they tell you about me?" I ask.

"That you had a troubled past. A bad relationship with your father. But overall, that you're a good person."

"They said that?"

"They're not bad people, Tia."

"Not bad people who want to kidnap a twenty-year-old pregnant woman or hang a man from a tree by his bare neck? Not bad people who take three of our people, gagged and hooded to another location and lock them in cages like animals?"

"You're being too judgmental."

"No I'm not," I stare Locke down, conveying as much anger possible through my eyes and words. "I thought, just for a second, that you had changed, but you haven't. This is all a game to you. 'Boone was a sacrifice the Island demanded'. 'The Island killed Eko'. All of this is your way of keeping yourself in control. Boone told me that back home you were a low paid, pee-on at a box company in Tustin. Does being out here in the wild make you feel like you have a purpose? Make you feel like people need you or rely on you for anything? You're nothing." I finish my speech, injecting poison into my words.

Locke stands from the chair. "I'm sorry you feel that way," he says. "Goodbye, Tia."

He leaves, then Juliet is back. "I'm going to move you to the swing set now."

"Why?" I ask. "Why now? Wouldn't it be easier to just keep us all separate?"

"Did you find your curiosity?" she jokes.

"Just answer the question."

"I don't know. They don't tell me anything," she says innocently.

"Right," I say. "You just make the sandwiches." I stand and hold out my wrists. "We leaving or what?"

She grabs my wrist and leads me outside. The morning breeze feels nice on my chaffed wrists. Sayid looks up as he hears us approach and his face shows a look of relief. "You're okay," he says.

"Hey, can it," says the guy watching over him. Ryan, Juliet said his name was.

Juliet un-cuffs my left hand and strings me around one of the posts, locking me onto it.

"You need anything else, Ryan?" Juliet asks him.

"You just go on home, Julie," he tells her.

She leaves in the direction facing my back, so I can't see where she ends up.

"Are you okay?" I ask Sayid.

"I said can it. That goes for you too sweetheart," Ryan says to me.

Sayid nods his head, answering my question with a "yes".

* * *

><p>We stay cuffed to the swing set for at least another hour, and by now, I can almost see the sun over the trees.<p>

Ryan starts to move, grabbing his pack and shuffling through it. "What are you doing?" I ask him, but he ignores me. He produces a gas mask, putting it on his head and securing it.

"What is that for?" Sayid asks. Ryan gets up and walks away. "What are you doing?" Sayid calls after him.

Everywhere around us, the Others are putting on gas masks and leaving their houses. I start to smell something funny. "Sayid, do you smell that?" I ask.

His head starts to droop. "They've poisoned the air. Try to hold your breath," he tells me, but I see his eyes start to sag.

I stop breathing immediately. I see everyone gather equipment and pack it in large sacks. But soon, it becomes too much. My vision turns hazy and I take a breath, inhaling the smell and all of a sudden I'm so tired. My head droops and my eyes close. I feel someone remove the cuffs from my arms and lay me on the ground gently. Then I pass out.


	12. Day 82: Back to the Beach

"Tia? Tia, wake up."

I open my eyes and Juliet's face is above mine, her blue eyes full of concern. I sit up, all too fast and I'm extremely dizzy from the head rush it brings me. I grab my temples and start to rub. "What happened?" I ask. She doesn't respond and I look back up at her face. She's completely covered in dry mud from head to toe. "I said, what happened?"

"They left us behind," she says.

"They? Your people? Why would they leave you behind?"

She looks at the ground sheepishly. "I'm guessing it was because I did something bad."

"What are you talking about?"

"I killed one of my people to help Kate and Sawyer escape."

My head has started to steady, so I stand up. "Where's Sayid?"

"Over here. I haven't had a chance to wake him yet."

I look to the other end of the swing set and Sayid is laying on the ground, breathing deeply. "Sayid," I say, gently shaking his shoulder. He lets out a groan and I shake him again. "Sayid, wake up."

His eyes open slowly and, groggily he raises his head and, with my help, sits up. "What happened?" he asks.

"They're gone. The Others. They abandoned this place."

"Then what about her," he says, noticing Juliet.

"They left her behind too. At least that's what she says."

"Where are Jack, Locke, and Kate?"

"Good question," I reply, turning back to Juliet. "You got an answer to that?"

"Kate and I were taken into the jungle. We had to find our way back. She went to get Jack from his house. As for Locke, I don't know where he is."

"Oh, that one I've got covered." I turn back to Sayid. "You're not going to believe this."

"What?"

"Locke flipped sides. He left with the Others. He's one of them now."

His eyes widen is disbelief. "I can't believe that."

"Oh, believe it," Juliet says.

"I thought you didn't know where he was," I say to her.

"I didn't, but what you said makes total sense. He blew up the submarine with C4 explosives the night Jack and I were supposed to leave."

"He did what?" Sayid says, standing up, albeit not too steadily, because I have to help him keep balance.

"It was probably Ben who told him to. Ben's never wanted me to leave this Island. And if he ever let's Jack leave…well that'll be the day." She looks over her shoulder. "We should get back to Kate. She's probably found Jack by now."

"I'm going to scout the houses with Tia," Sayid says.

"Suit yourself." Juliet leaves back towards Jack's house.

"What is she doing here?" Sayid asks me.

"You heard her. They left her in the jungle with Kate."

"That doesn't make any sense. She is one of them. Why would they just leave behind one of their own and take Locke with them?"

"Locke said he flipped because he didn't want to go home. She obviously does. Maybe that's a quid-pro-quo you need to be on their team."

"Why are you defending her?" he accuses.

"Because she seems different. I guess I'm just not as quick to judge as you are. I thought that's what you liked best about me."

He gives me a look that I can't read. "We need to scout the houses. Maybe we'll find some weapons. I will check the north side of the Barracks."

He leaves immediately. I head over to the south houses and look inside the front door of all of them. There's only furniture. There's some food in the refrigerators, but nothing useful, as in guns.

I exit the last house and head back. I see Jack and Kate (who is covered in mud like Juliet) standing with Juliet and Sayid headed over to them. I jog the rest of the way over. "Jack," I hear Sayid greet him.

"Sayid," Jack says back, nodding his head.

"I've checked all the houses on the north side, everyone's gone, no weapons, no trail."

"Same on the south side. Nothing," I say. "Hey Jack," I nod to him. He nods back with a small smile.

"It's like fifty people disappeared into thin air," Sayid says.

"We should take what we can find and head out while we still got light," Jack says.

Jack starts walking towards the house he was living in and Juliet follows him.

"She is not coming with us," Sayid says.

"Yes, she is," Jack defends.

"Why?"

"Because they left her behind too."

Jack starts leaving and Kate and Juliet follow. Sayid stares at Jack's back with disbelief. "So that's it?" I ask him. "You're not going to argue?"

"We'll see how much she wants to be with our people once we get back to camp. For now, I will ask her my questions. See how much she really knows," he says. "We should catch up."

* * *

><p>"It's getting late," Sayid says, about halfway back to the beach. "This is a good place to make camp."<p>

"I'll get some firewood," Jack says and Kate insists on going with him.

Jack and Kate leave and Juliet heads over to the stream and starts washing some of the dried mud off of her.

Sayid nods in her direction and he and I follow her. "Okay. Let's have it," she says, looking over at us.

"I want to know what you people are doing on this Island," Sayid says to her. "Why you're terrorizing us. Making lists. Kidnapping children. I want to know everything. But the first thing I'd like to know is, who are you?"

Juliet stays silent for a long time. "If I told you who I was," she says, finally. "If I told you everything that I know. You'd kill me."

"What you think I'll do if you don't," Sayid threatens.

"Leave her alone," Jack says, coming out of the jungle with firewood, Kate right behind him.

"Sooner or later she'll answer my questions," Sayid says.

"She'll answer your questions when she's ready. And you'll wait until she is. She's under my protection."

Jack goes back to our campsite and starts lighting a fire. Juliet follows him. Kate starts to say something, but Sayid cuts her off. "No. We'll talk about this back at camp."

Kate leaves and I watch Sayid, whose face looks pained. "Do you still trust Jack after all of this?" he asks me.

"I've never trusted Jack. The only reason I came on this trip was to learn more about the Others. And the way I see it, I've been blessed with exactly that opportunity."

"I'm glad we're on the same page."


	13. Day 83: Our New Camper

It takes almost the whole day and we're striding back into camp. Everyone is ecstatic to see Jack, back safe and sound. Sayid, Kate, and I even receive some grateful hugs for bringing him back. No one even seems to notice Juliet until Sawyer opens his big mouth. "What the hell is she doing here?" he yells and the whole camp turns their heads in her direction, staring her down.

* * *

><p>That night a large group of us stands at the kitchen, discussing our new camp member. Everyone but Jack is less than thrilled.<p>

"Who is she? What does she do for them?" Sayid asks Jack.

"She's their fertility doctor. And she wants off this Island just as much as we do. Ben's kept her here like a prisoner. We can trust her."

"Trust her? She's one of them," Sun accuses.

"Not anymore. They left her behind."

"Oh yeah, where'd they go?" asks Charlie.

"I told you, I don't know."

"Well maybe we better ask her," Sawyer suggests.

"She doesn't know either."

"Well here's a wacky idea. Let's stick our resident Iraqi on her. Let him do what he does, then see what she says."

"No, I don't do that anymore," Sayid says next to me, from the kitchen table.

"Well ain't that convenient," Sawyer says bitterly.

"But I don't trust her, Jack," Sayid continues. "If she's so innocent, why won't she answer my questions?"

"Just give her some time, she's afraid."

"How much time does she need?" I ask.

"Look, the fact that I trust her should be enough."

"Yeah, well it's not."

"Where did Locke go?" Desmond asks.

"He went with them," Jack tells him. "Right after he destroyed the sub, the sub that was gonna take me off this Island."

The camp exchanges mutters of surprise. "They were gonna let you go?" Sawyer asks.

"Yeah."

"Said who?"

"Ben."

"Ben. Whose life you saved."

"Sawyer, lay off," Kate says, speaking up for the first time.

"You should have let that bug-eyed bastard die," Sawyer says, ignoring her.

"He did it for us," Kate pleads with Sawyer.

"Sounds like he did it for him."

"James."

"Something you wanna ask me, Sawyer?" Jack says.

"Yeah Jack, I wanna ask you why you're fighting every one of us and sticking up for one of them."

"Look I spent every moment over there trying to find a way off this Island. I was trying to help all of us. I was trying to get us rescued."

"Jack!" Charlie shouts from the edge of the group. "There's something wrong with Claire!"

Charlie is supporting Claire's body as she coughs into her hand. Her face is soon covered in blood from her mouth. Jack runs over and helps Charlie carry her back to her tent. "Put her head back. Let's get her up. How long's she been like this?"

"She started feeling bad this morning," Charlie says.

"Before she got back, was she showing any symptoms at all?"

"No she was fine."

"What about water, has she been drinking enough water?"

"I think so, yeah."

Jack starts working on Claire, Charlie by their side. Juliet comes out of nowhere. "What happened to her?"

Jin says something terse in Korean. "He said, what do you care?" Sun translates rudely.

Jack tells everyone to back off so I start to head back to my tent. "Tia! I need your help," Juliet calls to me, running up. "I need you to go and get Jack."

"Yeah, he's a little occupied right now."

"Please I have to talk to him."

"Why?"

"Because I think I know what's wrong with Claire."

"How?" I ask, confused.

"Because I did it to her."

It takes all of my willpower not to rip out her hair. "You better be lying, or so help me god…"

"Please, Tia. Please, just get Jack."

I look back toward Claire's tent and Jack has left it, looking defeated. "Fine," I say to her. "Let's go get him."

She leads the way and I catch Sayid's eye and wink at him as we get closer to Jack. We reach him and she starts to explain herself. "Claire's immune system is turning on her. She's having a latent reaction to a medication in her bloodstream."

"What medication?" Jack asks.

"It was designed to keep her alive during the late stages of her pregnancy."

"Designed by who?"

"By me," she says, sighing. "For some reason, the women here can't have babies. The mother's body turns on the pregnancy, treats it as a foreign invader. I saw it happen over and over. Every pregnant woman on this Island died. That is, every pregnant woman until Claire."

"What did you do to her?"

"One of our people infiltrated your camp, and began taking blood samples, right after your plane crashed."

"You mean Ethan," I say.

Juliet nods. "Even though Claire didn't conceive on this Island, we found that her symptoms were consistent with previous mothers so we tried to save her life."

"By kidnapping her?"

"No! That wasn't supposed to happen. She was our control case. I had developed a serum that I thought would reverse what was happening to her. Ethan was administering the injections. But then, you found out that he wasn't on the plane. So, he improvised. He kidnapped her, on his own. That was never the plan." Jack and I stand there in silence, staring at her. "Look, I know how this sounds," she continues. "But without those injections, Claire would have died. Without the serum, she's going into a form of withdrawal, and if I don't treat her quickly, her immune system could shut down entirely. Jack! I can fix this. I just need the serum. Ethan kept a stash of medical supplies near the caves where you used to live. If I go right now I can be back before it's too late."

"Do it. Get moving," Jack tells her.

Juliet goes back to her small amount of possessions and starts to get ready.

"Jack," I say. "It's almost dawn. Claire's been like this for a whole day. How does something like this just hit a person?"

"If what she says is true, about the pregnancies, we can trust her completely. Like I said, she's a fertility doctor."

"Oh, you better hope she was lying about the pregnancies. Least you forget our friend Sun, who is currently with child."

"You really think that would slip my mind?"

"I don't know, Jack. But right now, you sure are acting like your mind is on a slip. How could you just let her come back here? If you're really trying to protect her, you had to know bringing her here, with all of these angry people couldn't have been the best choice."

"I thought you all would trust my judgment."

"I never have, and you know that. You're not an idiot. So what makes you think I would trust you on this?"

"What did I ever do to make you hate me so much?" he asks.

"You made a promise you couldn't keep," I say with venom. "Boone might have let you off the hook, but I never did."

I walk away and the sun starts to rise. I see Juliet filling a water bottle, getting ready to leave.

Sayid and Sawyer walk up to me. "Why did you wink?" Sayid asks.

"Because, I might have said she's different from most of them, but that doesn't mean I trust her. And I certainly don't trust Jack."

"Glad we're all on the same page," Sawyer says. "Back on the other island, that blonde bitch threatened to kill Kate the moment I found a chance to escape. And she would have done it too. I watched her gun down one of her own, no mercy in her eye. She's a bad apple."

"Then I guess we can't let her run off into the jungle all on her own," I say.

"Well, Brown Eyes that would be positively irresponsible of us wouldn't it?"

"I guess we have a plan then."

"She's leaving," Sayid says. "Let's go."


	14. Day 84: Juliet Knows Things

"Step away from the case!" Sayid shouts to Juliet, who's sitting at the base of a tree about a mile away from the caves, unlocking a small, plastic, black case.

"Listen to me, Sayid," she protests.

"Step back," he says again.

"It's full of medical supplies," she explains, stepping back and gesturing. "They're for Claire. Jack knows all about it."

"Jack ain't here right now is he?" Sawyer says. "You wanna take a look at that case, Brown Eyes?"

I bend down and open the lid. Inside is a medical injector and several vaccine bottles full of an unknown, clear substance.

"I'm telling you the truth," Juliet insists.

"You said earlier if you told me everything you knew, I'd kill you," Sayid says. "I'm going to test the validity of that statement."

"He means talk," Sawyer simplifies.

"We don't have time for this."

"We cleared our schedules. We got all the time in the world."

Juliet pauses for a moment, staring us down. "You know it's interesting," she says eventually. "That you three are now the camp's moral police. I'm curious, Sayid, how long was it before you told everyone on that beach exactly how many people you've tortured in your life. Do they know about Basra? And I'm sure the first thing you did when you got here, James, was to gather everyone in a circle, and tell them about the man you shot in cold blood the night before you got on the plane. But Tia, yours surprised me the most. But I'm sure your friends back at camp know all about Paul DeMarco. So why don't we just skip the part where you three pretend to be righteous. I'm taking that medication back to Claire. And you're gonna let me. Because if she doesn't get it, she's gonna die. And the last thing, that any of you need right now, is more blood on your hands."

Sayid and Sawyer stare at her, stunned. I'm the same way. How could she possibly know about Paul DeMarco? No one knows about that. Not even my brothers. It's my greatest secret. How does this stranger know something I've managed to bury from two years ago, right before I left for basic training?

I back up from the box and Juliet grabs it and runs back to camp.

* * *

><p>"Basra, huh?" I say, sitting down next to Sayid.<p>

"Do not talk about that," he says, threateningly.

"I don't want to know. What I want to know is how she could have possibly known about all of that stuff."

"You mean about Paul DeMarco?"

"You want me to ask you about Basra?"

"Fair point." He pauses for a few seconds. "There is one thing I know for certain."

"And what's that?"

"She cannot keep her secrets for long. Most of them may still trust Jack," he gestures to the other castaways with his head. "But eventually, they will learn the truth."

"That we can't trust Jack anymore?"

"Unfortunately, no. And they will realize that shortly."

* * *

><p>I stare down Jack and Juliet outside of my tent. "Morning, Tia," Desmond says, startling me. He stands above me with Hurley.<p>

"Hey, Des," I say.

"Must be nice, being back home."

"Yeah, tell me about it," I say, sarcastically.

"Listen I was wondering if I could borrow your first-aid kit. Twisted my ankle."

"You want me to take a look at it?" I ask, diving into my tent to retrieve the one I got from the pallet.

"Nah you're alright. I've taped my fair share of ankles."

"Okay," I say, handing it over.

"Thanks."

Hurley stands there, awkwardly. "Something wrong Hurley?"

"Nah, just, keeping Desmond here company. 'Cause, we're friends."

I look between the two of them. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," Desmond insists.

"Desmond, Hurley can't keep a secret. What's going on? Does it have something to do with your weird future flashes?"

Desmond looks at me sheepishly. "Could you go get some water, brother?" he asks Hurley.

Reluctantly, Hurley walks away. "I can't tell you everything," Des says.

"Why not?"

"It was, it was like a sort of jigsaw puzzle. Only I didn't have the picture in the box so, I don't know how the pieces fit exactly."

"Again, why can't you tell me what you saw?"

"If I tell you that, it'll change the picture in the box."

"Isn't that what you normally try to do? Stop Charlie from dying?"

"It's not Charlie this time. I don't want to change the picture."

"So you want whatever this is to happen?"

"More than anything."

"Does it have something to do with Penny?"

He looks at me, startled. "I told you. I can't change the picture on the box!"

"Calm down, man. I'm not going to interfere with your whole thing. Just do me one favor."

"And what's that?"

"Don't tell Jack about this. Not a word."

"Aye, I'll be sure to keep clear of him. Don't worry."

* * *

><p>That evening, Desmond, Hurley, Charlie, and Jin went off down the beach on a "camping trip". Jack and Juliet spend more time together. Sayid and I stay far away from him.<p> 


	15. Flashback: Private Investigator

June 2000. Los Angeles, California.

Three years and the police still hadn't found anything. My father refused to be of any help, working diligently to retain records, convinced that if I ever discovered my mother's killer that I would go back to my insomnia. That Donny would get back on his drug kicks or Gil would actually carry out his plans to go into the Peace Corps before college.

I couldn't stand that my father was trying to bury up everything that had to do with my mother's death. So I had decided to do my own digging.

I hired a private investigator to start doing his own work on the side. It didn't matter that a lot of what he was doing was illegal. I just wanted answers.

And it only took him four weeks.

Tony Alonso met me at a café just off of the UCLA campus. He handed me a red folder. "His name's Paul DeMarco. He's been running the shoot and run scam for years now, all over California. He and his buddy, guy by the name of Jason McCormack shot down a police officer last week after a bar raid."

"So how do you know this is the guy?" I asked Alonso, looking at the pictures of Paul DeMarco.

"I went undercover. Did some digging. Turns out, DeMarco and McCormack started off their crime spree with a series of easy takeovers over three years ago. DeMarco's third kill was a middle aged woman on some animal protest near Concord Avenue in Sacramento."

"That's where my mom was shot."

"Now, let me ask you, kid. What are you gonna do now that you got this information?"

"I don't know."

"Gee, maybe that would have been a nice thing to figure out. Now if you don't mind, I'd like my eight grand."

I handed Alonso a yellow envelope from my bag, containing his cash. He opens the flap and inspects it. "This better be all of it, doll."

"It's all there," I tell him, looking at the folder again.

He starts to leave, but then turns back. "I don't wanna over step no boundaries, but I noticed that hollow pointed pistol in your car."

"That's in a case. How did you-,"

"I'm a P.I. doll, have a little respect. Just know that when you aim that gun at someone's head…Well you find out who you really are in that moment. You're a sweet kid with lots of pint-up anger. But do you really want to be a murderer?"

"You have your money. You don't need to stick around."

"I'm just saying, doll, if you need someone to get the job done for ya, I know a guy. You know where to find me," he says, turning and leaving the restaurant.

* * *

><p><em>Two days later<em>

I found the address in the folder of the apartment leased to Paul DeMarco. In my car, I sat outside, my pistol in my hand, waiting for him to come out. And when he did, I stayed at my safe distance, rolled down the car window and pointed my gun. I'd spent the last four weeks of Alonso's investigation at target practice and I knew I could hit De Marco's head from here.

But my finger wouldn't contract. The muscles wouldn't work. Alonso was right. I figured out who I was that day. I wasn't a killer. But I was a revenge seeker.

* * *

><p><em>Late that evening<em>

I rang the doorbell. "Jesus, doll," Tony Alonso exclaimed in his boxer shorts. "What are you doing here?"

"You said if I needed someone to get the job done to come to you. Well, here I am."

The annoyed look on his scraggly face vanished. "Absolutely. Guess you aren't the killer you thought you were, huh? Well, this is gonna cost you a bit more of Daddy's money."

"Exactly how much?"

"Hit-men aren't cheap, doll."


	16. Day 85: What Happens to Pregnant Women?

I feel like I've been in non-stop power mode since Jack, Kate, and Sawyer were taken. Now that they're back, I just want things back to the way I wish they could be constantly. So I decide to spend my morning with Sun in the garden. Something I haven't done in a long time.

"I'm happy you're back here with me," she says, handing me a shovel.

"I'm glad I have time to do stuff like this again."

We work mostly in silence, because that's how we like it. It's nice to just occupy myself with busy work and the presence of another person without having awkward small talk.

"Hey," Jack says, coming out of the trees. "Oh, Tia. You're here too." He tries to sound pleased, but I know he's faking. Lucky for him, he fools Sun.

"Good morning, Jack," she greets him politely.

"Need a hand?" he offers her.

"Thank you."

He grabs one of our spare shovels and starts digging. "You know, I came by your tent earlier. Has Jin gone?"

"Oh. He went off with Charlie, Hurley and Desmond. Did you need him?"

"Actually I was looking for you, wanted to see how you were doing, with your pregnancy."

My head shoots up. I feel awful, keeping what Juliet said to Jack and I about the pregnant women on the Island from Sun. But I had never intended to tell her. At least until something started going wrong. I will kill him if he tells her. I swear to God.

"Oh, I'm doing fine," Sun responds to Jack's inquiry. "A little tired but that's normal, right?"

"Sure. Any morning sickness?"

"Not anymore."

"Any bleeding?"

Sun pauses, not answering right away. "Why are you asking me all these questions, Jack?" she asks, eventually.

Jack gives her a small smile, trying to look innocent. "I'm just checking in. I mean, now that I'm back I just wanted to make sure that you were doing okay."

"Thank you. I'm okay," she says, smiling.

"Great," Jack says, standing up. "I'll leave you guys too it. Tia," he says, nodding to me. I ignore him.

After he leaves, Sun turns to me. "Is something wrong? You seem angry with him."

I shake my head. "I'm fine. Really Sun, I'm just annoyed about the Juliet thing."

"What do you think happened to Jack? While he was with the Others? Since he's been back, he seems different."

"I know what you mean, but he says that they basically kept him prisoner and he cooperated because they said they'd let him off the Island."

"Do you believe him?"

I pause and choose my words carefully. "I'm not sure what I believe."

"Why do you think he was asking all those questions about my pregnancy?"

"I…I'm not sure, Sun."

"What if the Others want my baby, like they wanted Claire's? He's been there alone for over a week. How do we know he isn't working with them?"

"I don't think he's working with them."

She eyes me suspiciously. "Do you know something, Tia?"

I concede. "Alright. The night we got back, and Claire was sick, Juliet told Jack and me some stuff. She was their doctor, their fertility doctor studying pregnant women and. She said the reason Others wanted Claire's baby was for research."

Sun drops her shovel and heads toward the beach. I get up and follow. "Sun, wait!" She leads the way through the trees and towards Juliet, who is washing something in the laundry tarp.

"Sun, wait you don't have to do this," I call to her.

"Go away, Tia," she tells me. She walks up to Juliet. "I want to know about your research," she demands. "What happens to pregnant women?"

"You're pregnant?" Juliet asks, standing up. "Are you sure? How do you know?" She seems genuinely surprised. At lease Jack didn't tell her everything.

"I asked you a question," Sun says. "Everyone else might be alright with you washing your clothes and eating our food, but I want to know what's going on. I want answers. What are you people doing? Why are you taking children? What happens to pregnant women on this Island? What happens to—,"

"They die," Juliet says. "They all die."

"Sun, come on, let's go," I say, grabbing her arm and leading her away. I don't expect her to follow, but she does. "Sun, let's talk about this." But she ignores me and goes to the edge of the beach and stares out into the ocean.


	17. Day 89: Recordings Make Me Angry

The group from the camping trip got back early this morning, but they've all been extremely elusive until now. Hurley approaches my tent and I smile at him, glad that he came to me instead of Charlie or Desmond. It's much easier to get secrets out of Hurley then the two of them.

"Hey Tia," he greets.

"Hey Hurley. How was the camping trip?"

"You didn't tell anyone about the flashes, did you?"

"No, I didn't. So what happened out there? Did Desmond make the wacky vision come true?"

"So you can keep a secret, right?" he asks, ignoring my question.

"Um, obviously."

"What about Sayid? You trust him?"

"One hundred percent. Hurley, why are you asking me these questions?"

"I'm just trying to make sure. 'Cause we found something out there."

"Like what?"

"Well, more like someone."

* * *

><p>Hurley fetched Sayid and brought us over to Charlie's old tent. "What's going on?" I ask Hurley.<p>

"Okay, dudes. We were camping on the beach and four days ago, we heard a helicopter. Only it sounded weird. Turns out it was broken and it crashed in the water. But we saw something jump out the side, so we followed it into the jungle the next morning. Turns out it was a woman."

"A woman?" Sayid asks, looking at the tent. I remember Desmond said something about Penny. Did his girlfriend magically fall out of the sky?

"Who is she?" I ask.

"We don't know. But she knows Desmond."

"So is she here to rescue us?"

"Yeah, that's the weird part. She said our plane was found at the bottom of the ocean. She's here to rescue Desmond."

"What do you mean, 'the bottom of the ocean?'" I ask.

"I want to talk to her," Sayid says. At that moment, Charlie comes out of the tent. "You've already spoken to her?" he asks him.

"Yeah," Charlie says. "You're gonna wanna hear it for yourself."

"And you haven't told Jack?"

"No."

"Good."

Sayid leads the way into the tent and Charlie and I follow. Desmond is already inside, cleaning a wound on her stomach. Sayid bends down at her eye level. "My name's Sayid Jarrah. This is Tia Samuels. I understand your helicopter crashed onto the Island."

"Actually it crashed in the water," she says with a British accent.

"What's your name?"

"Naomi. Naomi Dorrit."

"Naomi, from where exactly did you take off?"

"A ship. Freighter. About eighty nautical miles west of here. We're part of a search-and-recovery team."

"You told my friends the wreckage of Flight 815 was discovered. Did you mean the partial wreckage?"

"No. They found the entire plane off the coast of Bali. In an ocean trench four miles deep. They sent down cameras in these little robots to survey the wreck. The bodies were all there."

"Well, obviously we're not dead."

"Obviously," she agrees with a small smile.

"So if you weren't looking for us, then who were you looking for?"

Naomi turns her head to Desmond. "Him."

"Desmond?"

"My company was hired by a woman named Penelope Widmore. I don't know why, I never met her. She gave us a set of coordinates. We'd be conducting a differential GPS grid search ever since."

"You knew about the Island?" Sayid asks.

"Island? We were given coordinates in the middle of the bloody ocean. We thought it was a fool's errand. 'Til three days ago. I was flying back for the ship when all of a sudden the clouds cleared and I saw land. The instruments started spinning, I realized I was going down so, I grabbed my chute and I bailed."

Sayid turns to Desmond. "Did you actually see her helicopter?" he asks.

"No," Desmond says.

"You think I'm lying mate?" Naomi asks, offended.

"And I take it you have no means whatsoever of communicating with that freighter of yours?" Sayid asks.

"What was your name? Sayid?" she asks.

"Yes."

Naomi pulls out a complicated looking device from under her blankets. It's a satellite phone. "Remind me not to rescue you, Sayid."

* * *

><p>Naomi handed the phone over to Sayid reluctantly after prodding from Desmond. Outside, Sayid fiddles with the equipment inside. "So is that like a radio?" Hurley asks.<p>

"It's like a radio, yes," Sayid says. "But I've never seen equipment this sophisticated."

"I have. They use them in the navy."

"So you can make it work?" Hurley asks.

"Army, not navy, Hurley."

"You can still make it work, right?" Hurley says to Sayid.

"I hope so."

"And what about the other part? The part about they found the plane and we were all dead."

Sayid takes a deep breath. "One thing at a time." Sayid finishes fiddling with the parts inside and replaces the back of the phone. He turns it on and an LDA screen appears, flashing the words _Locating Channel - Channel Not Found_. "There's not a single audible channel," Sayid tells us. "Whatever that interference is, it's blocking our ability to send out our own transmission. If we—,"

"What's that?" Kate asks us, walking up. Oh no. "Is that a radio? Where'd you get it?"

"Uh, the luggage," Hurley blurts out.

"What? You just found a radio in the luggage?"

"Kate," Sayid says. "If I explain, I want you to keep this very quiet."

"Keep what very quiet?"

He explains the entire situation. Naomi, her boat, Penny Widmore, and the phone. The whole time, I'm wishing he would stop, because I trust Kate about as much as I trust Jack. There's no way she'll keep this from him. And I'm right, because she never promises to keep this a secret. She just leaves and heads toward Jack's tent.

Here we go.

* * *

><p>Sayid and I pace the edge of camp nervously, waiting on a confrontation from Jack. But our pacing is soon interrupted. "Hey, Tia. Sayid." I hear whispered from the tree line. We walk over and see Sawyer crouched out of sight.<p>

"What are you doing in there?" I ask him. I notice his bare and bloody feet. "Where are your shoes?"

"I was with Locke," he tells us.

"Well, where is he?" Sayid asks.

"He went back."

"Back where?"

"With them. Don't ask me where the hell it is, 'cause it don't matter right now. What does matter is this." He pulls out a small tape recorder from his pocket.

* * *

><p>After listening to the tape, I'm positively filled with rage. I can't believe Jack ever trusted Juliet. I can't even fathom what I would do if he was actually working with the Others. But first things first. We need to get Juliet secure. She can't be trusted. "She's not here," Kate tells Sayid, Sawyer, and me as we approach Juliet's tent.<p>

"I noticed," Sawyer says sarcastically.

"She left with Jack," Kate tells us. "He took off right after I told him about Naomi."

"Who's Naomi?" Sawyer asks.

"Why did you do that, Kate?" I ask her.

"Because she's hurt, because he's a doctor, and because he has a right to know."

"Where is he now?"

"I don't know, Sayid."

"Of course you don't."

He starts to walk away, angrily. You know," Kate calls to him. "It might be time for you to tell everybody else about Naomi, too."

Sayid turns his head, but keeps walking. "Play her the tape!" Sayid shouts at Sawyer.

Kate turns to him. "What tape?" Reluctantly, he pulls it out of his pocket and plays it for her. I see the anger in her eyes grow at every word.

* * *

><p>Sayid and I have managed to gather up the whole camp that night at the kitchen, along with Naomi, who is still injured, but doing better. We tell them everything, with assistance from Naomi. "So, what, the whole world thinks we're dead?" Claire asks.<p>

"That's not important right now," I say to the group.

"Not important?!" Sun exclaims.

"What do you mean it's not important, Tia?" Claire asks me.

"Excuse me," Naomi says, not giving me a chance to answer. "I'm sorry, don't you people want to be rescued?"

"We kept her a secret to keep her safe."

"Safe from what, Sayid?" Kate asks.

"Safe from Jack. He spent a week with the Others, and he brought one of them back with him. Here, amongst us. And every time we try to get answers from this woman, he prevents her from giving them."

"But it's Jack!" Sun protests. "He would never do anything to hurt us. And Juliet? I believe she's a good person."

"Good person, huh?" Sawyer says. "You basing that on what? Wouldn't involve her taking you to one of their medical stations would it now, Mrs. Kwon?"

Sun's face holds a look of confusion. "How—?"

Sawyer pulls out the tape recorder and plays it. Juliet's voice projects from the speaker. _Kwon is pregnant, the fetus is healthy and was conceived on-Island with her husband. He was sterile before they got here. I'm still working on getting samples from the other women. I should have Austen's and Samuels's soon. I'll report back when I know more._

"Where'd you get that?" Jack asks. The whole camp turns toward his voice and he stands at the edge of the group, with Juliet.

"Where have you been, Jack?" Sayid asks him.

"I asked you where you got it."

"You really think you're in a position to be asking us questions?" Sawyer says.

"Turn the tape over," Juliet tells him.

"Stay out of it," Sawyer snaps back.

"You wanna burn me at the stake, here I am, but first, turn the tape over, press play."

Sawyer does so and the voice of my old friend, Henry Gale, AKA Ben comes out of the speaker this time. _Juliet, its Ben. I'm sending three teams to extract Kwon the night after tomorrow. We won't have time to run Samuels's or Austen's sample, so if you determine that they or anyone else is pregnant, mark their tents, and we'll take them too. Good luck. _

Juliet starts to explain, looking at Sun. "The night I saw your baby on the ultrasound, I told Jack what they were making me do."

"Why didn't you tell us?" I ask.

"Because I hadn't decided what to do about it yet," Jack answers.

"'Yet?'" Sayid asks him.

"I think we've got some catching up to do," Jack says, coming into the group.


	18. Day 90: I Blow Up The Others

Jack must be feeling guilty about his secret keeping because this morning, he leads a large group out into the jungle, not just the usual small group of Sayid, Kate, Sawyer, and myself. They're here, but so are Charlie, Claire and the baby, Jin, Sun, Desmond, Hurley, and Juliet. Jack stops us at a large, open field.

"We're here!" he calls to us. We gather around him and Juliet. "A couple of nights ago, Juliet came to me and she told me everything: that Ben had sent her here to find out which of our women were pregnant."

"So, what, you guys were doing tests on us?" Kate asks.

"No," Juliet says. "But that's what he wanted me to do. I've been leaving tapes at the medical station. You all heard what he said; they're coming tomorrow. Sun, I'm sorry that I lied to you."

Sun ignores her. Sayid speaks up. "While I appreciate your honesty, Jack, it doesn't explain why you brought us out here."

Jack turns to the tree line opposite us. "Danielle!" he calls. Rousseau emerges from the trees. "Show 'em," he tells her.

Rousseau bends down and moves a pile of leaf filled branches off of a small box. She takes two small metal prods off of the box and places the tips of the metal together.

BOOOOOOOOM!

A giant explosion, even bigger than the one we used to open the hatch, sounds from the other end of the field and everyone in the group steps back in surprise. When the mess of the explosion calms, Jack starts to explain.

"When Juliet told me they were coming, the first thing I thought was, 'Where the hell are we gonna hide this time?' But hiding's pointless. They're just gonna keep coming back. So I went out and I found some help. And for the past few days she's been bringing dynamite back from the Black Rock. For the very first time we know exactly what they want, when they're coming to get it, and they have no idea that we're gonna be waiting for 'em. So Juliet's gonna mark the tents with the white rocks just like she was told to, but there's not going to be any pregnant women inside; there's gonna be plenty of what we just used on that tree. So tomorrow night, we stop hiding, we stop running, we stop living in fear of them, because when they show up, we're gonna blow 'em all to hell."

* * *

><p>Back at camp, people work in shifts to help Jack and Rousseau rig up wiring to reach a safe distance to explode the dynamite. I've been helping Sayid with Naomi's phone, but we've hit a snag. "We need to talk about Naomi's phone," Sayid says to Jack.<p>

"Not now."

"If you're angry that I doubted you, I'll be happy to make a sincere apology later, but now we have a means of—,"

"Look I'm a little bit busy right now, you guys."

"And we're trying to get us off this Island, Jack! So how about a little less attitude?" I shout at him.

Jack stops walking and starts to listen to Sayid explain, as do Juliet and Rousseau. "I can't transmit using this phone because Danielle's distress signal is overriding the frequency." He turns to Rousseau. "If you tell me where the radio tower is, I can go there, switch off your message, and call for help."

"That signal has been playing for the last sixteen years and nobody has heard it," Rousseau says. "What makes you think that you'll have better luck?"

"But Naomi's boat is only eighty miles offshore. I know if we eliminate Danielle's signal, they will hear us."

"No, they won't," Juliet says.

"And why is that?"

"We're jamming it."

"What?" I ask, confused.

"Ben is using one of the DHARMA stations to block all of the signals off of the Island except for ours."

"What station?" Sayid asks.

"They call it The Looking Glass. But it's underwater. I have no idea where it is."

"I believe I do," Sayid says, earning a confused look from me. He leads us over to his work tent, where he pulls out the binder he got from The Flame. He turns some pages, then pulls out a laminated electrical map, similar to the one that lead us to the Barracks.

"Now this is The Looking Glass," he says, pointing at the paper. "It's an underwater DHARMA station. Please," he says to Juliet. "Can you tell me anything you might know about this place?"

"I've never been down there. I don't know anyone who has."

"Why not?" Jack asks.

"There was some accident. Ben told us that the station was completely flooded."

"Well, if it's flooded then how does it still work?"

"How it still works is irrelevant," Sayid says. "The question is, how do we get it to stop working, so we can use the satellite phone? The diagram shows that The Looking Glass is connected to the Island by a cable. I feel sure that this is the very same cable down the beach which runs into the ocean. So if we follow the cable, it should lead us to the station."

"So how are we gonna get in?" I ask.

"We swim in. There's a moon pool. A room with an open floor at the base if the station, big enough for a submarine to dock. Even if the station is flooded, I think I'll be able to find the relay switch and disable it."

"What about swimming back out?" I ask. Sayid just looks at me. "No," I say. "You can't do that."

"Agreed," Jack says. "I'm not letting you go on some suicide mission just to flip a switch."

"But someone has to do it or we'll never leave this Island."

"I'll do it," Charlie says, approaching the tent with Desmond. "Swim down, turn off that bloody switch, swim back up. Piece of cake."

"Charlie, you don't even know what we're talking about," Jack says.

"I was junior swim champion in Northern England. I can hold my breath for four minutes. I know exactly what you're talking about, Jack."

Everyone waits for Jack's answer. "No," he says. "And there's no reason to do this now. We're going to focus on the Others, and then we'll deal with this."

"Wait a minute," Sayid says, stopping him. "We have the chance to signal for a rescue."

"Look, for ninety days I've been asked to make decisions for this entire camp. There you go. I just made one." He starts to walk away, ending the argument.

* * *

><p>Sayid insisted we wait to talk about the newest Jack situation. So we work on rigging the wire with everyone else. But Hurley stops everyone's progress when he sees something at the shore of the ocean. "Hey! Look, there! Look!" he shouts, pointing.<p>

A teenage boy in a small canoe is rowing to our shore. Sayid drops his wire, and runs at the kid, attacking him.

"Get off him, dammit," Sawyer shouts, pulling Sayid off of the kid. "It's okay."

"What?" Sayid shouts. "He's one of them!" I jog up beside the three of them.

"I know, I know," Sawyer shouts. "It's okay. He was in the cage next to me. I know this guy." He turns to the kid. "What the hell are you doing here, Karl?"

"They're coming. My people," he says.

"Sorry you came all this way for nothing, but we already know," Sawyer tells him.

"Then why are you still here?" Karl shouts.

"Because when your people show up here tomorrow night, we're gonna be ready for 'em."

"Tomorrow?" Karl asks, confused. "No. No, they're coming tonight. They're coming right now!"

We take Karl to Jack and he tells us everything. "My people are coming tonight to capture your pregnant women. There are going to be about ten people in the party."

"Is that everything?" Jack asks him.

"Yeah."

"You trust him?" Jack asks Kate. She just shrugs.

"You don't trust me?" Karl shouts. "What about her!" he points to Juliet. "She's a spy. She's supposed to mark the tents of the pregnant women with white rocks so they can take them."

"They know, Karl, but thanks," Juliet says.

"So what are we going to do?" Hurley asks.

"We have to leave now. Hide," Sun says.

"Where?" Bernard asks. "It's their Island. If they wanna kill us, they'll find us."

"The sun's gonna go down in a few hours," Jack says, looking at the sky. He turns to Rousseau. "Do we have enough wire yet?"

"Not even close."

"We've gotta figure out a different way of setting the dynamite off."

"We could shoot," Sayid suggests.

"We don't have enough guns," Jack says. "He said that ten of them are coming, armed."

"Not the Others, the tents," Sayid clarifies. "We can camouflage the dynamite next to the tents. Target it from our positions at the tree line."

"Juliet marked four tents. That means we need four guns."

Karl pulls out a glock from the butt of his jeans. "Here. You can have mine too."

"I'll be a third," Rousseau volunteers.

"We'll take your gun, but you're not staying here," Jack says. "You're gonna lead everyone to the radio tower. Everyone."

"Radio tower?" Claire asks.

"Now if this doesn't work, we can't risk losing the chance of getting in contact with Naomi's boat, so everything has to happen at the same time. Charlie?" he says, turning. "You still up for a swim?"

"Yeah, I believe I am," he says.

"I'll go with him," Desmond volunteers.

"Okay. We better get to it."

* * *

><p>I help Sayid set up metal DHARMA cans for target practice. "I'm staying with the gunners," I tell him.<p>

"I know it will do me no good to tell you no," he says.

"No it will not."

"But are you sure you can do this? Shoot complete strangers down?"

"Don't worry about me. So that leaves three more guns."

"I'll be the second. Jack will volunteer, but we can't let him stay."

"Why not?"

"Because he will stay for personal revenge, not to help the group. He needs to lead everyone to the radio tower."

"Alright." I notice a few people standing to the side, waiting to try out the targets. Sayid and I start testing people out, looking for the third and fourth shooters.

Bernard tries out the targets with the rifle and he hits them all, dead on. "You want me to hit another one?" he asks us proudly.

"No, you've made your point," Sayid says, taking the gun.

"Bernard," Rose says. "This is not pheasant hunting in Montgomery County."

"I know what I'm doing."

"No, you don't. Pheasants don't shoot back."

"Nothing's gonna happen to me, Rose. I just have to shoot a tent. And I'll be right behind ya."

"Then I'm staying, too," she says.

I'm about to protest when Jack walks up. "No, you're not, Rose. Everyone's gathering down at the south end of the beach. No one's staying behind but the shooters."

"Says who?" she snaps. "You wanna give me your word that nothing's going to happen to my husband, then I go."

"I'll give you my word that if we don't kill everyone that shows up here in about an hour, it's not gonna matter where Bernard is."

"I like you better since you got back, Jack. You're almost an optimist." She turns back to Bernard. "Come on. If you're gonna be hiding in the bushes, let's get you into something dark."

"You two better get going," Jack says to Sayid and me. "Rousseau says it's about a day's walk up to the radio tower."

"We're not taking them to the tower. You are," Sayid tells him.

"Excuse me?"

"You're not staying behind, Jack," I tell him.

"This was my idea."

"And we're perfectly capable of executing it," Sayid says.

"I owe them!" Jack yells.

"What are you more concerned about," Sayid argues. "Killing the Others, or getting our people off this Island? This afternoon you said you were our leader. It's time for you to act like one. Lead them to the radio tower, Jack. And then take us all home."

Reluctantly, Jack walks away. Sayid and I exchange a look and head back to our tin cans, setting them up for the next shooter.

* * *

><p>Juliet marked four tents with white coral rocks. Jin has volunteered for the fourth shooter position. Everyone else is getting ready to head to the tower.<p>

"What if this doesn't work?" Sayid says to me.

I smile. "Are you getting nervous, Sayid?"

"No, I'm worried about you. I'm not going to tell you to stay with the other group, but what if this doesn't work? What if your life is put at stake today? What about my life? I need to know that you—,"

"Sayid, I can't have you worrying about me. We've got enough to do right now. Let's stay in the moment."

"But—,"

"I'm not gonna let you down," I tell him.

He nods his head. "Okay."

Jack walks up to Sayid and I. "You have everything you need?"

"No, but we've done our best with what we have." I answer

"So it's you two."

"And Jin and Bernard. They're both excellent shots and highly motivated. They both want their wives off the Island. Sayid and I set the dynamite in those four tents. We won't miss."

"Jack," Sayid says. "No matter what happens here, I want you to keep moving. Keep moving for that radio tower. Don't turn back for any reason. Tia and I have talked about this. I'm willing to give my life if it means securing rescue, but I'm not giving it up for nothing. You understand?"

Jack nods his head. "Yeah. I understand."

They shake hands. "And good luck," Sayid wishes him.

"You too."

Sayid walks away, leaving me alone with Jack. "I want everything to be okay with us," Jack says to me.

"Is that so?"

"Please, Tia. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't save Boone. I'm not good at letting go. I noticed you wearing his necklace. When my dad died in Australia, I tried to shove it away. I didn't want to cope with it. You haven't been able to run away. You're a brave person and I admire that about you so much."

"Wow, Jack. I'm worried you don't have enough faith in me to get this done."

"You'll get it done," he says. "I really am sorry, Tia. For everything. You're the best paramedic I've ever worked with. When we get out of here, maybe you should expand your education."

"That's a nice thought, but I honestly have no idea what I'm gonna do when we get home. My brother was getting married, but he delayed the wedding because I got shot. Who knows what they did when they thought I was dead."

We share a small laugh. "So, we're okay?" he asks.

"Yeah, we're cool. I need to stop blaming people for Boone's death. I guess when I let my grudge go with Locke, I latched on to you."

"Don't worry about it." He holds out his hand. "Good luck."

"You too," I say, taking his hand.

I walk over to Sayid, Jin, and Bernard. Sayid hands me Karl's glock. I hold the familiar weight in my hand. I watch my friends walk into the trees and away from our camp, the fact that I may never see any of them again, hot on my mind.

* * *

><p>Night falls and I'm a good distance away from Sayid and Jin, but in-between them, my glock pointed at Libby's old tent. I see dark figures walking out of the jungle, towards Ana Lucia's old tent. "It's empty!" I hear one of them shout. Sayid makes the first shot.<p>

BOOOM! The large explosion pulsates from the tent, knocking three bodies away. "It's a trap! Move!" I notice two at Libby's tent, checking the bed sheets and I pull the trigger and...BOOOOM!...watch their bodies fly.

Bernard's bullet hits a tent, BOOOOOM! sending another one flying and the Others start heading away from the tents, figuring out that they're rigged I hear Jin's gun shoot at a tent, but it misses.

"Tree line!" one of them shouts, finding Jin's location. Son of a bitch. From my spot, I see two of them run toward Jin's location, but Jin shoots them down.

Jin's bullets stop firing. "I got your man!" a voice shouts. I look through the bush and realize that I knew the voice. Ryan, the Other that guarded me and Sayid when we were handcuffed to the swing set. "Drop your weapons!" he shouts. "It's over. I got your man." He holds Jin with a gun at his throat.

"Drop the gun," a voice says behind me. It's my old friend Tom. I feel the tip of his gun on the back of my neck. I drop my glock and he grabs my hands leading me towards Ryan and Jin. Tom ties my hands and Sayid and Bernard drop down beside me.

"They all tied up?" Tom asks.

"Yup," Ryan says,

"I'm gonna radio Ben," he says, grabbing a black walkie-talkie out of the back of his pants. "Ben," he says into the walkie.

"Tom, what happened?" I hear Ben's voice ask from the other side. Tom explains out bombs and everything he's deduced of our plan.

"What?" Ben asks, shocked.

"They're all dead. Diane, Ivan, all of em, dead. And Shepherd and his people, they're all gone."

"Gone, gone where?"

"I don't know. Did you hear me? They killed seven of our—,"

"Tom!" Ryan interrupts. "Calm down and tell him the good news."

"What good news?" Ben asks.

"We caught four of em," Tom says. "The ones who stayed behind to blow up the tents. Ben, they knew we were coming."

"It was Juliet. She betrayed us."

"What?"

"Just figure out where she is, Tom."

"Get up," Ryan tells Sayid, pulling him up to face him. "Okay, junior, where the hell did—,"

Sayid spits in Ryan's face and Ryan hits Sayid on the head with the butt of his gun. I look over to Bernard and Jin, who are on my left side. Jin holds an angry poker face. Bernard holds a face of pure terror and worry. I fear he may be the end of us. I know I'm gonna need to keep Bernard quiet.

"They're not talking," Tom says to Ben.

"Who do you have?"

"Jarrah, Samuels, Kwon, and the dentist."

"Shoot Kwon."

My head jerks up to Tom and the walkie. Tom looks as shocked as I feel. "What?"

"If you want them to answer questions, kill Kwon. Do it now."

Ryan points his gun at Jin's head. Jin says something in Korean. "I don't know what that means," Ryan says. "But I'm sure it's lovely." He cocks the gun.

"No, wait. No," Bernard says.

"No. No talk," Jin tells him.

"No please."

"Bernard, don't say a word," I tell him and one of the Other's whose name I don't know hits he across the face and I land face first into the sand. I taste blood in my mouth.

"You talk to me, nobody will die," Tom says to Bernard. "Now tell me where your people are."

"He's lying," Sayid says. "He's going to kill us all any—,"

That unnamed Other kicks Sayid in the stomach.

"Where are they?" Ryan asks. No one speaks. "Sayonara," he says, pointing his gun back on Jin.

"A radio tower," Bernard says before Ryan fires. "They're hiking to a radio tower."

"Why in the hell are they going there?" Tom asks.

"A woman, parachuted here. She has a satellite phone and they're gonna call her ship."

"Juliet thought we were coming tomorrow," Ben's voice says through the walkie. "So why were they waiting for us tonight?"

"You heard him," Ryan says. "How'd you know?"

"A kid, told us, he came in a canoe, and he warned us."

"What kid?" Tom asks.

"Karl. He said his name was Karl."

"You heard that, Ben?" Tom asks the walkie. There's no response. "Ben?" he asks again, this time louder.

"I heard."

"What do you want us to do, kill 'em?"

"No. Not yet." Ben says.


	19. Flashback: Specialist

August 2004, San Antonio, Texas

"I hear you're getting transferred."

"Sergeant," I said, saluting from my bed.

"I'd tell you to at ease, but you look comfortable enough. This is for you," he said, handing me a certificate and a small box.

"Sir?"

"You're receiving the Purple Heart for your services to the country."

I held the small box in my hand. "But I thought I was getting discharged?"

"Honorably Discharged. With the valor of a Purple Heart. You were wounded in combat, Specialist. This is what we do."

I was speechless. Receiving an award for getting shot seemed ironic, after watching all of my convoy die in front of me. "Sir, I don't…"

"It's standard protocol. Don't make a fuss about it. Just enjoy the rest of your life, Specialist."


	20. Day 91: Rescue

We sat on our knees, facing the ocean, guns pointed at our backs. Tom and Ryan talked diligently about what to do next. What would Ben tell them to do?

Tom's walkie went off. "Tom, are you there?" It was Ben's voice.

"Yeah, I'm here." He turns off his com and looks at us. "Ben's got your friend Jack on the other end."

"Jack, don't give him anything!" Sayid shouts and Ryan kicks him in the stomach again.

"Don't do it, Jack," I yell. Whack, right across my face again, but not as hard as last time.

"Leave her alone!" Bernard yells.

"I said shut up!" Ryan says, pointing his gun again.

"Tom," Ben's voice says. "Unless you hear my voice in one minute, shoot three of them. But not Samuels. We may need her."

"Got it."

"Don't negotiate with him," Sayid calls to Jack.

"Gag 'em," Tom instructs.

Ryan wraps a black piece of cloth around Sayid's mouth, same with Bernard. Jin must have tried to stand up, but they've gotten him back down and are tying his mouth. I feel the fabric in my mouth as they tie it tightly, keeping me from shouting.

Tom is looking at his watch. He turns off the walkie. I don't know how long it's been since Ben set up the kill for Jin, Sayid, and Bernard. I know he wants me alive because they believe I might be pregnant, even though I know that I'm not.

Tom whispers something in Ryan's ear, then he bends down next to me. "I'm not going to kill your friends. I'm shooting three bullets in the sand instead. But when I do, I want you to scream, and make it convincing, or I'll change my mind. He removes the cloth from my mouth and turns the walkie back on. Ryan shoots three bullets in the sand. "NO!" I yell.

"Shut up," Tom says, putting the cloth back on my mouth.

"Why did I just do that?" Ryan asks. Tom pulls him away and they talk. I exchange a look confused look with Bernard. Sayid is stone-faced.

"It was an order, Tom, we had to follow it," Ryan says.

"Ben doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, he's lost it! I mean look at what they did to us. Instead of putting three bullets in the damned sand, we should have killed them for real."

I listen to them bicker about whether to kill my friends for real, but I hear something in the jungle. Something that sounds like an engine. A large blue DHARMA van comes out of the trees and smashes through a tent. Tom dives out of the way, but Ryan shoots at the front window. I can't see whose inside, but whoever they are, they run right over Ryan's body and stops the van in front of us.

"Ryan!" the Other with the gun on us shouts. He steps in front of Sayid, but that was a bad decision. Sayid trips him, then wraps his legs around the Other's head and snaps it, killing him instantly. I see Sawyer come out from the other side of the van, holding Ryan's gun.

"Stay right there, Tom," I hear a voice say. I look over and see Juliet holding Tom's gun at his head. Sawyer walks over. "Okay. I give up," Tom says, holding up his hands in surrender.

Sawyer doesn't care. He shoots Tom in the chest. "That's for taking the kid off the raft."

"Dude," Hurley says, getting out of the van. "It was over, he surrendered."

"I didn't believe him."

Juliet, Hurley, and Sawyer come and untie us. "You okay, Brown Eyes?" he asks me when he gets the bonds loose. I pull the gag out of my mouth and hug him. "Am I okay? You just shot Tom!"

"Get off me," he says, but I feel him hug me back. "I've killed worse than him."

I let go and Jin, Bernard, and Sayid are untied. "We should move these bodies," Juliet says. We manage to move Ryan, Tom, and our unknown captor, who Juliet calls Jason to the edge of camp, along with the nasty smelling corpses we blew up that are still intact.

Hurley finds Tom's walkie and turns it on. "Attention, Others. Come in, Others. If you're listening in, I want you to know that we got you bastards. And, unless the rest of you wanna be blown up, you best stay away from our beach."

"Hurley?" a voice asks from the other end.

"Jack?" Hurley says, confused.

"Where are you, what's going on?" Jack asks.

"Dude. I'm back at the beach."

"What?"

"Yeah, I went back to help Juliet and Sawyer. I saved them."

"They're okay, Juliet and—,"

"Everyone's fine. Me, Sawyer, Juliet, Tia, Sayid, Jin, Bernard. We're all—,"

"What, wait? Bernard and Jin and Sayid, they're with you?" I remember that he thinks they're dead.

"Yeah, dude, I told you, I saved 'em all."

"Hey, stay where you are," Jack instructs. "We're almost up to the tower. You'll be safer there."

"Yeah, I got ya, we'll stay put until you, like, phone home."

"What about Charlie?" Claire's voice asks from the walkie. "Did he make it back yet?"

"Not yet," Hurley says. "But they're probably paddling home as we speak. Don't worry, I'm sure he's fine."

After Hurley hangs up, we divvy up the remaining guns. Two from the Others and four from us, originally.

"So this is it?" I say to everyone. "We're going home."

We stand in our circle and smile, completely hopeful for the first time in a while. I walk over to the tent Hurley destroyed. I notice a small black box strewn away from the tent. I bend down and pick it up, opening it.

Inside is my Purple Heart pin that I had received in August, almost four months ago. Someone must have found it and kept it.

I start walking toward the graveyard, the Purple Heart in my hand. I bend down in front of Boone's grave.

"I'm going home. And while I'm super happy about that, it's a little bitter because I'll never get to talk to you like this again. And since you've given me something so important," I say, holding the talisman of the necklace in my free hand. "I've decided to give you something of mine."

I remove the pin from its box for the first time and pin it to the cord holding the sticks that form a cross together in the middle. "Goodbye, Boone."


	21. Flashforward: Obituary

Los Angeles, California, November 2007

I grabbed the newspaper and looked at the name that jumped out at me. What the hell? How could it be? How can he be dead? I read the obituary. Cause of death: Suicide.

What does everyone else think about this? Are any of them going to go to the funeral? Do they even know?

I drop the paper back on the stack. "Oh my god!" I hear someone exclaim. I look up at a young woman's face. "I can't believe it's you. I totally did a report on you for a current events paper in high school!"

I smile. "How interesting."

"Yeah, totally. Hey can I have your autograph? It's not every day you meet one of the Oceanic Seven!"

* * *

><p><strong>LOST<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Well, there you go! Book three! I can't believe I've been able to keep this going as long as I have. As always, shoot me a review and look out for book 4. Thanks for reading!<strong>


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